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Hearing: 1st September 2009, day 54
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PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO THE DEATH OF
ROBERT HAMILL
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Held at:
Interpoint
20-24 York Street
Belfast
on Tuesday, 1st September 2009
commencing at 10.30 am
Day 54
1 Tuesday, 1st September 2009
2 (10.30 am)
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Adair, we have all learned with deep
4 regret of the death of Richard Ferguson, Queen's
5 Counsel. He established himself here in
6 Northern Ireland as a leading advocate. He played
7 a part in politics where his was the voice of moderation
8 amid too many voices of stridency. He came to England,
9 where quickly he established himself, and he took Silk
10 in England a second time and was an outstanding
11 advocate, respected by all. He was a forceful advocate,
12 an advocate of integrity and, if I may say, what I think
13 we would all regard as an advocate's advocate. He is
14 greatly mourned and we express our condolences for his
15 family and his friends. May he rest in peace.
16 MR ADAIR: Thank you, sir. May I just add, sir, on behalf
17 of the Bar of Northern Ireland, our condolences to the
18 family and close friends of Richard Ferguson. Of those
19 of us who are old enough and privileged enough to have
20 worked with him over a number of years in what was the
21 Crumlin Road Court House, which was where all the major
22 trials took place in those days, our memories, sir, are
23 of a man who was respected by all his colleagues without
24 exception, a man who was regarded as a person of the
25 highest integrity, an advocate of the greatest skill,
1
1 but can I just say this, sir? What I will remember him
2 as, even more importantly than his skill as an advocate
3 and even more important than his integrity as
4 an advocate, and I think for all those of the Bar who
5 worked with him: we will remember him most importantly
6 as a gentleman.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Now I gather we have to rise for
8 a few minutes while the technology is changed round.
9 May I say that Baroness Richardson unfortunately broke
10 a hip and she may, from time to time, have to stand up
11 and walk around, but there is no need to --
12 MR ADAIR: Panic.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: -- hold up the proceedings. She will be
14 listening, even though not sitting.
15 (Short break)
16 MR UNDERWOOD: Sir, the first witness we have is
17 Tracey Clarke, who I am going to call by video link.
18 MRS TRACEY HANVEY [nee CLARKE] (called)
19 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD
20 A. Hello.
21 MR UNDERWOOD: Good morning. Can you hear us?
22 A. Good morning. Yes.
23 Q. Is it Miss Clarke or Mrs Hanvey?
24 A. Mrs Hanvey.
25 Q. Mrs Hanvey, will you care to take the oath, please?
2
1 A. Yes.
2 MRS TRACEY HANVEY [nee CLARKE] (sworn)
3 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you. Now, it is odd giving evidence by
4 video link, because you may find also a time lag and you
5 may find questions come from people you can't see.
6 I understand you have a medical condition which
7 might call for some breaks from time to time. Is that
8 right?
9 A. That's right, yes.
10 Q. I want to ask you, first of all, whether you signed
11 a document, and I want you to look at the document. It
12 is at our page [17327].
13 A. Okay. Go ahead.
14 Q. Is that a witness statement that you signed?
15 A. That is a witness statement, yes.
16 Q. We know you signed that on 10th May, as long ago as
17 1997. Can you tell us, did you realise shortly after
18 that that other people became aware that you had signed
19 it?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Have you any idea how they became aware of that?
22 A. No.
23 Q. What was their reaction?
24 A. Other people were annoyed --
25 Q. But --
3
1 A. -- that I had made the statement.
2 Q. I am so sorry. I interrupted you. Other people were
3 annoyed, did you say?
4 A. People were annoyed, yes.
5 Q. Can I try to break these down into groups? Your family
6 knew about this, because you had told them, I think. Is
7 that right?
8 A. That's right.
9 Q. So who were the sort of people who were annoyed? Were
10 they friends of yours?
11 A. People around town. People around town, yes. Some
12 friends, some not friends.
13 Q. Okay. What did they say or do about that?
14 A. They made me feel, you know, obviously, that I did the
15 wrong thing.
16 Q. How did they say that? I mean, were they angry with you
17 or what?
18 A. It would be more annoyed.
19 Q. What effect did that have on you?
20 A. Well, I hated myself for it.
21 Q. Did you have to move?
22 A. I didn't have to move. I chose to move to Belfast.
23 Q. Did you change jobs?
24 A. Yes, I changed jobs, yes.
25 Q. Were you aware, once you had made this witness
4
1 statement, that the people you named in it were arrested
2 and kept in custody --
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. -- and charged with murder?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. How did you feel about the effects of the witness
7 statement? You told us you hated yourself for making
8 the statement. How specifically did you feel about
9 having been part of a system that ended up with people
10 you knew being arrested and kept in custody?
11 A. What you are asking me is how did I feel?
12 Q. Uh-huh?
13 A. I felt terrible, because I knew I had lied. I felt --
14 no words can describe it.
15 Q. You were hating yourself because you had lied in the
16 statement. Is that it?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. At that stage, Allister Hanvey was a boyfriend of yours,
19 I think. Is that right?
20 A. An ex-boyfriend.
21 Q. Obviously from your name you are now married to him. Is
22 that right?
23 A. I was married. I am now separated.
24 Q. Did you two have children together?
25 A. Yes. Uh-huh. Two girls.
5
1 Q. You were due to give evidence to this Inquiry in January
2 this year, were you not?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Did that put stress on you?
5 A. Of course. Yes.
6 Q. Why?
7 A. Because it's just hard to deal with. It's hard to deal
8 with that I told lies. People from everywhere think
9 that I did see it, and I never seen it, and it's hard,
10 because nobody will believe me, but I know I never seen
11 anything, and it's hard that I put those people in jail.
12 Q. Were you so stressed by that that you went to see
13 a psychiatrist?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Can we have a look at page [75323], please? This is
16 an extract from a report written by a psychiatrist --
17 A. Uh-huh.
18 Q. -- as a result of that visit.
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. I just want to read it to you, if I may.
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. "As you may be aware, she is involved in a Public
23 Inquiry with respect to the alleged murder of
24 Robert Hamill. Her estranged husband is alleged to be
25 one of the participants in the latter and also has to
6
1 attend the Inquiry. When she was admitted, she admitted
2 to the admitting SHO that she saw her boyfriend kicking
3 Robert Hamill. Her mood had been intermittently poor
4 since this event. She admitted that after the initial
5 police statement, she alleged that the police asked her
6 aunt to bring her to the police station where names were
7 suggested to her with respect to the assailants that
8 accosted Mr Hamill and she simply went along with
9 these."
10 I want to ask you: did you say to the doctor you saw
11 when you went to the hospital that you saw your
12 boyfriend kicking Robert Hamill?
13 A. No. This is inaccurate. No.
14 Q. I am sorry. No, this is what?
15 A. Inaccurate. It is not true.
16 Q. Okay. Would you mind if we saw his notes?
17 A. Who? The doctor's notes?
18 Q. Yes.
19 A. Is this not them here?
20 Q. This is a record written a couple of months later of
21 what those notes said.
22 A. Okay.
23 Q. So is there any difficulty?
24 A. That's fine.
25 Q. Thank you. You go on in this after it says that you
7
1 admitted that you saw your boyfriend kicking
2 Robert Hamill:
3 "Her mood had been intermittently poor since this
4 event."
5 Then it goes on:
6 "She admitted that, after the initial police
7 statement, she alleged that the police asked her aunt to
8 bring her to the police station where names were
9 suggested to her", etc.
10 That's right, isn't it, because you have alleged
11 that?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Because you told the Inquiry that, didn't you, when they
14 interviewed you?
15 A. Uh-huh.
16 Q. Now, when you saw the doctor in February this year, you
17 were wanting his help, were you not?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. So were you completely open with him?
20 A. To the best -- at the time, I was very, very ill and
21 very acutely sick, so I would have wanted his help, yes.
22 Q. Now, if we go back then to your statement that you say
23 is untrue, which is at page [17327], I want to ask you
24 about parts of it, if I may.
25 A. Okay.
8
1 Q. All right? Now, if you look at the first page of it, it
2 talks about meeting up with some friends of yours,
3 getting off the bus, etc.
4 If you go down to the last four lines --
5 A. Uh-huh.
6 Q. -- on the fourth line from the bottom:
7 "Around this time we heard shouting coming from the
8 main street. I can't remember what was said, but it was
9 something like 'Fight, fight'."
10 Now, do you recall that?
11 A. I recall -- I recall hearing stuff -- hearing
12 a commotion downtown, yes. Uh-huh.
13 Q. Then it goes on:
14 "We all ran down to see what was happening. When we
15 got as far as the church, I could see a crowd at the
16 junction of Thomas Street, Market Street."
17 [17328].
18 Was that true?
19 A. Well, I can say that I ran down the town. I can't
20 really -- yes, it was me. It was me ran down the town
21 to see what was going on, yes.
22 Q. All right. Then it goes on:
23 "I met up with Stephen Bloomer at Poundstretcher and
24 I just sat down beside him."
25 Was that right?
9
1 A. I can't remember.
2 Q. Okay. No reason to have made it up presumably?
3 A. No.
4 Q. "I saw two people lying on the street. One was near the
5 centre of the road and the other was near the footpath
6 close to Eastwoods. The person I saw in the middle of
7 the road I thought was dead, as he was not moving."
8 Was that right?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. "It was at this time I saw a number of persons gathered
11 around the person lying in the centre of the road."
12 Did you see a number of persons gathered around the
13 person in the road?
14 A. I don't recall that, no, I can just vaguely -- I just
15 remember seeing the person on the road not moving.
16 There was people around. I can't say where they were.
17 There was lots of people around.
18 Q. You may not remember it 12 years on. Is there any
19 reason to believe that, when you said it in this
20 statement, it was false?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Okay. You go on:
23 "These persons were kicking the person on the ground
24 around the head and body."
25 Now, again, is that true?
10
1 A. No.
2 Q. That's definitely false, is it?
3 A. That's definitely false.
4 Q. You can remember that; you did not see that?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Can you remember somebody writing that into the
7 statement, even though it was false?
8 A. Can I remember saying that in the statement? No,
9 I can't remember saying it. Obviously, if you can
10 imagine, I was in a room with police officers, my auntie
11 and people suggesting things to me, and this has
12 obviously been in the statement. I didn't write the
13 statement. Somebody else wrote it.
14 Q. Did you read it before you signed it?
15 A. No. I'm sure I didn't. I was in a state.
16 Q. Okay. So is this your evidence to the Inquiry then:
17 people were suggesting things to you. Somebody wrote
18 them into a statement and you signed it without reading
19 it?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. So you had no idea what was in the statement when you
22 signed it?
23 A. I knew it was -- well, it was obvious it was to do with
24 the Hamill Inquiry, you know, the Hamill -- the death of
25 Mr Hamill.
11
1 Q. But a lot of what we have just been through is true,
2 isn't it?
3 A. Uh-huh.
4 Q. Because you have told us that that was what you saw.
5 How did that get into the statement?
6 A. It was suggested.
7 Q. It was suggested and it was true. Is that right?
8 A. No, that wasn't true. No, it wasn't true. I never seen
9 anybody kick or hit anybody.
10 Q. No. I am dealing with the material we went through
11 a few moments ago, which you accept is true.
12 A. Right.
13 Q. How did that get into the statement?
14 A. Obviously I said it.
15 Q. Let's go on in here. I have already read to you the
16 part you say is not true:
17 "I saw them jump on the person on the ground."
18 It goes on:
19 "They jumped all over him and kicked him. I saw the
20 persons who were doing this and I can identify them as
21 (1 ) Dean Forbes (2) Allister Hanvey (3) Stacey Bridgett
22 (4) 'Muck', (5) Rory Robinson."
23 Is that true? Did you see those persons?
24 A. No, no.
25 Q. How did those names get in the statement?
12
1 A. Well, at the stage of this statement, it was two weeks
2 after the incident happened and everybody was talking
3 about it in town. It was all about the place and the
4 police suggested names to me. Also, there was hearsay
5 as well.
6 Q. Let's unpick that a bit. Are you telling us that you
7 knew about those names from talk on the street?
8 A. They were talked about, yes.
9 Q. And, in addition to that, the police suggested them to
10 you. Is that what you are saying?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. What was your response when those suggestions were made?
13 A. Well, I didn't see anything. I didn't see the fight,
14 but, you know, my auntie -- I had been discussing it
15 with her over the past from when the incident happened.
16 We discussed it, talked about it. If I heard anything,
17 I would tell her. If she heard anything, she would talk
18 to me, and the police then suggested names and it was
19 just sort of like a snowball of names and I just agreed.
20 Q. So you did agree? That's how it got into the statement,
21 is it?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. When the police suggested those names to you, you said,
24 "Yes, I saw it"?
25 A. Yes.
13
1 Q. Right. Then reading back into the statement, after the
2 name Rory Robinson it goes on:
3 "The other person lying near Eastwoods was being
4 helped by Michelle Jamieson, but I saw persons run up
5 and kick him around the head and body and Michelle was
6 telling them to stop."
7 Again, did you see that?
8 A. No.
9 Q. How did that get in there? Was that a suggestion you
10 agreed to or was that just written in?
11 A. I have absolutely no idea. I don't even know
12 Michelle Jamieson.
13 Q. Then it goes on:
14 "At that time, I saw a number of police behind the
15 crowd who were attacking the two persons lying on the
16 ground. As far as I could see, the police were not
17 doing much to stop what was happening."
18 Now, how did that get in?
19 A. I don't know. I have no idea.
20 Q. Is it your suggestion, perhaps, that the police wanted
21 you to say in a statement that they were not doing much?
22 A. No. I don't know. I can remember seeing a Land Rover,
23 and that's about it.
24 Q. So your memory is you can remember seeing a Land Rover
25 but not seeing policemen who were not doing much. Is
14
1 that right?
2 A. I don't -- it's very vague. It's really hard to
3 remember.
4 Q. Okay. Let's go back to the circumstances of the
5 statement then. On the face of it, it seems unlikely,
6 doesn't it, that anybody would have been suggesting this
7 to you. Do you accept that?
8 A. I understand where you're coming from, of course,
9 uh-huh.
10 Q. Can you help us at all about whether there was
11 a suggestion that you agreed to or whether this did come
12 from you?
13 A. I really don't know. I can't help. In that
14 circumstance, I can't help. I don't know.
15 Q. All right. It goes on:
16 "The next thing I remember was more police arrived
17 and pushed the crowd back. The ambulance arrived and
18 took the two persons who had been attacked by the crowd
19 away. The police then made us move up the street to the
20 church. They later moved us up to West Street."
21 Is all of that right or not?
22 A. That would be right.
23 Q. Again, just help us with the mechanics of how that got
24 into a statement. Was that you telling the police what
25 you saw and then writing it down into the statement?
15
1 A. I would have said that to the police, yes.
2 Q. Is this fair: on the first page of what we looked at
3 here, a lot of it was true and would have come from you.
4 We are getting into a part here that was true and came
5 from you, but when it says you saw these named persons,
6 including your boyfriend, kick Robert Hamill, that came
7 from suggestions by the police and word on the street
8 and you just accepted it. Is that it?
9 A. Yes, yes.
10 Q. Then, if we go on, you say:
11 "It was at this time I spoke to one of the police
12 whom I know to be Robbie Atkinson. I asked him if the
13 two men who had been kicked were they okay and he shook
14 his head."
15 Did you talk to Robbie Atkinson?
16 A. It could have happened, yes.
17 Q. Then:
18 "We then went on to the party at Tracy McAlpine's
19 house ..."
20 The address is blanked out there:
21 "I'm not sure of the name of the new estate. There
22 was a good crowd at the party and everyone was
23 discussing what had happened in the town centre, and
24 some of the people who had been involved appeared to be
25 happy about what they had done. I remember they
16
1 mentioned the name of one of them as Hamill, but I can't
2 remember what exactly was said."
3 [17329].
4 Did you go to a gathering at Tracy McAlpine's place?
5 A. I can't remember going to the party, but that would have
6 been the done thing in those days.
7 Q. Again, it looks unlikely that would have been
8 a suggestion from the police and it seems more likely it
9 would have come from you. Would you agree with that?
10 A. Yes. That's right.
11 Q. Equally, where it says there that there had been
12 a discussion about it, again, did that come from you?
13 A. I can't remember any discussions, but it probably would
14 have been talked about.
15 Q. Uh-huh.
16 A. That's probably true.
17 Q. Okay. Was Allister Hanvey at that party?
18 A. I can't remember.
19 Q. Then the statement goes on:
20 "I went home the next day and told my parents what
21 had happened and about the two men being attacked in the
22 town centre and that my ex-boyfriend, Allister Hanvey,
23 was involved in it."
24 So there is an assertion in your statement that you
25 went home the next day and told your parents that you
17
1 had seen it and that Allister had been involved in it.
2 Now, how did that get in the statement?
3 A. Because whenever I did go home, I had a discussion with
4 my mum, not then that I had seen it, but I spoke about
5 the incident in the town and said that Allister was
6 involved.
7 Q. So you did tell your mum that Allister had been
8 involved?
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. Why did you do that?
11 A. Because I didn't like him at the time and I just put his
12 name in it.
13 Q. To your mum?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. How would that hurt him?
16 A. Don't know. Can't say. I was only 17. I don't know
17 why I did it.
18 Q. So this passage is actually true then, isn't it:
19 "I went home the next day and told my parents what
20 had happened and about the two men being attacked in the
21 town centre and that my ex-boyfriend, Allister Hanvey,
22 was involved in it."
23 You did tell your parents that?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Then you go on:
18
1 "I spoke to Allister Hanvey on the Tuesday and
2 I told him about what I had seen and that I had told the
3 police about everything and that he was in deep trouble.
4 He said he would meet me after work and I met him
5 outside my house at about 11.05 pm. He wanted to know
6 what I had told the police, and, as I had not been seen
7 by the police, I made up a few things to annoy him."
8 Now, is that right?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. So you actually had a meeting with him. You rattled him
11 by telling him, falsely, that you had ratted him out to
12 the police. Yes?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Again, this was true and this was something you
15 volunteered to the police to go into the statement. Is
16 that right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You go on in the statement:
19 "I remember Robbie Atkinson's name coming up and
20 Allister said that Robbie Atkinson had been very good to
21 him, because on the Sunday morning after the incident in
22 the town centre, he rang him at about 8.00 am and told
23 him to get rid of the clothes he was wearing the
24 previous night."
25 Now, did that get in the statement?
19
1 A. Well, my aunt had told me that information.
2 Q. How did she get it?
3 A. She is friendly with Robert Atkinson and stuff.
4 Q. Did you believe it?
5 A. I was quite gullible when I was 17. I'd believe
6 anything.
7 Q. So you believed it to be true and you told the police?
8 A. Uh-huh.
9 Q. Are you sure you didn't get it from Allister?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. It goes on:
12 "Since then, Allister has contacted me on numerous
13 occasions and he keeps asking me what I have said to the
14 police. He also told me that Robbie Atkinson was
15 ringing him every day to keep him up-to-date with the
16 police investigation."
17 Again, where did that come from?
18 A. My auntie.
19 Q. What, your auntie told you that he was getting in touch
20 with you every day -- getting in touch with Hanvey every
21 day?
22 A. It was discussed.
23 Q. Again, did you believe it?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And you told the police that?
20
1 A. Yes, but, remember, Andrea McKee was with me at the time
2 I gave my statement to the police. She was with me.
3 Q. Uh-huh. Then --
4 A. Sorry. Sorry. It was just talked about. It was talked
5 about in the room. She was talking as well, you know.
6 She was telling the police things as well.
7 Q. Right. The two police officers who were there have
8 given evidence to us and they say that your aunt kept
9 quiet through all this. You are disagreeing with that,
10 are you?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Let's go on in the statement:
13 "On Thursday of last week Allister's mother rang my
14 work to speak to me, but I was off that day and I didn't
15 speak to her. I spoke to Allister Hanvey yesterday and
16 I asked him what he did to the persons that they
17 attacked in the centre of Portadown who is now dead.
18 Allister said he jumped on his head and kicked his head.
19 I told him that is how he got the fractured skull, and
20 he said he doesn't have a fractured skull anymore."
21 How did that get into the statement?
22 A. I made it up.
23 Q. So you were there. You were gullible. People were
24 suggesting things to you. Nonetheless, you went out of
25 your way to make that up. Is that what you are telling
21
1 us?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Is that right?
4 A. Uh-huh.
5 Q. Why did you do that?
6 A. I was just being a little rat, a bitch, wanting to get
7 him in trouble.
8 Q. So this is nothing to do with the police being bullies
9 or your aunt putting words into your mouth, is it? This
10 is you volunteering that your boyfriend murdered
11 Robert Hamill. Is that it?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And all because you were a bitch, you say?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Let's look at what other people say about what you were
16 saying at the time, shall we?
17 A. Uh-huh.
18 Q. We have a statement from your mother. Can we have
19 a look at page [14896], please?
20 A. Okay.
21 Q. You will have to take it from me, I am afraid, that this
22 is your mother's statement, because we have taken her
23 name out of it.
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. If we look about halfway down the first page you see in
22
1 the middle of a line:
2 "It was around 12 midday when the news was on ..."
3 Are you with me?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. "... and I remember Tracey turning the radio up at the
6 news. She told me that she had seen an awful fight in
7 the town last night."
8 Did you tell her you had seen an awful fight in the
9 town?
10 A. See, it is hard. I would have implicated that I was on
11 the town that night and I had probably said that
12 I'd seen it, but hadn't, just wanted to, you know, bump
13 myself up. I don't know why. I just did. I just don't
14 know why.
15 Q. Okay. If we go to the bottom of the page, there is
16 a sentence which starts:
17 "Allister Hanvey ..."
18 Do you see that?
19 A. Uh-huh.
20 Q. "... a boy from [blank] had been going out with Tracey.
21 However, I know on that Saturday night Tracey didn't go
22 to the Coach with him, but I think they both met up at
23 a party some time later on the Saturday night after this
24 fight in Portadown."
25 Again, does that help you now remember whether you
23
1 did see him at the party?
2 A. No. I can't remember the party.
3 Q. All right. Then if we go halfway down that second page,
4 [14897] --
5 A. Uh-huh.
6 Q. -- there is a sentence which starts on the left-hand
7 side:
8 "After the first few days ..."
9 Do you have it?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. "After the first few days, Tracey started to talk to us,
12 that's me and her stepdad, Jim Murray, about the fight
13 in Portadown and what went on. She told us that
14 Robbie Atkinson, who I know was a policeman in
15 Portadown, had told Allister to burn his coat."
16 So according to your mother you were telling her
17 about the conversation between Robbie Atkinson and
18 Allister Hanvey. Did you?
19 A. That information would have been talked about freely
20 between Andrea McKee, my mum, myself. We would have
21 talked about those things.
22 Q. Okay.
23 A. It was gossip.
24 Q. You then go on:
25 "Tracey was saying, 'Imagine telling him to burn
24
1 that good silver coat'. It cost Tracey £175 out of
2 Paranoid in High Street mall."
3 She goes on, missing out a bit:
4 "Tracey knew a girl who worked in Paranoid and she
5 had left the jacket over and Tracey was paying weekly
6 out of her pay so that Allister could have it by
7 Christmas 1996."
8 She goes on to describe the coat. Did you buy
9 Allister Hanvey a coat then?
10 A. I bought Allister lots of clothes, jackets, zip-ups,
11 jeans, coats, yes.
12 Q. Do you remember buying one on the lay-away system for
13 Christmas from Paranoid in 1996?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Do you accept this is what you said at the time, though?
16 A. Yes, but, if you understand, if Andrea had said to me
17 about the burning of the coat, that would have annoyed
18 me, because she had told me that.
19 Q. If we go -- the final two lines of that page. It says:
20 "She also said that Robbie had told him, that's
21 Allister, to burn everything; trousers, shirts, the lot.
22 Tracey said that Allister had burned the clothes and
23 that his mother helped him to do this."
24 Where did that information come from?
25 A. Again, Andrea McKee.
25
1 Q. Did -- I am sorry. Go on.
2 A. I am sure yous know this, but this statement was given
3 three years after the incident.
4 Q. Why are you saying that?
5 A. What I am saying is Andrea, my mum, you know, it was all
6 talked about, you know. It was -- nothing was hidden.
7 You know what I mean? Andrea talked to her all the time
8 about it. Gossip. That's all they had to talk about.
9 Q. Go on.
10 A. I am just saying the information, you know, was all
11 hearsay.
12 Q. What she is saying here is you told her that Robbie had
13 told Allister to burn the clothes. Now, did you tell
14 her that Robbie had told Allister to burn the clothes?
15 A. That information come from Andrea.
16 Q. Directly from Andrea to your mother, or directly to you
17 and then to your mother?
18 A. Possibly from Andrea to me to my mum.
19 Q. But, did you believe it?
20 A. As I said before, I was very gullible. Whatever she
21 said I believed.
22 Q. Did you talk to Allister Hanvey at all about this?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Have you ever spoken to him about your witness
25 statement?
26
1 A. It was never really discussed.
2 Q. So you went on to marry him after he had been in prison
3 for six months after you gave a statement against him
4 and you never really discussed it. Is that it?
5 A. He knew that -- he knew that -- I had told him about the
6 whole -- what it was like at the police station and the
7 talk of Andrea and things. He knows that.
8 Q. Right. So you told him that the police made suggestions
9 to you and you made a false statement against him. Is
10 that right?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. You told him that a lot of this information came from
13 Andrea. Is that right?
14 A. Uh-huh.
15 Q. That has become the story, hasn't it?
16 A. It is not a story, it's the truth.
17 Q. Okay. If we go halfway down this third page, [14898],
18 towards the right there is a sentence which starts:
19 "She later told me that she phoned
20 Elizabeth Hanvey ..."
21 Do you see that?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. "... and told her that Hamill was dead. She said
24 Elizabeth told her, 'That throws a different light on
25 things'."
27
1 Did you say that to your mum?
2 A. I can't remember.
3 Q. Have you any other explanation for how your mother could
4 have got that information?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Did you talk to Elizabeth Hanvey at about this time?
7 A. I have no idea, no idea.
8 Q. Because that would fit, wouldn't it, with you having
9 conversations after the murder with Allister Hanvey
10 about his part in it and about a cover-up? Do you
11 agree?
12 A. A cover-up for who?
13 Q. By Robbie Atkinson telling him to burn his clothes.
14 A. Allister didn't tell me that. That information come
15 from Andrea.
16 Q. But this couldn't have come from Andrea, could it, that
17 you phoned Elizabeth Hanvey, and Elizabeth saying, "That
18 throws a different light on things".
19 Can you give us any explanation for that other than
20 that being true?
21 A. No.
22 Q. OK. "Some time around this time a detective called
23 John McAteer called. I can't remember exactly when this
24 was. He talked to Tracey, although I don't think he got
25 much sense out of her. Although I can't be sure of when
28
1 McAteer called, I know that Allister Hanvey called with
2 Tracey on a Friday and took her out for lunch. Tracey
3 said that she asked Allister what exactly happened that
4 night and Allister told her everything."
5 So your mother is there saying the police first came
6 to see you. You didn't make much sense to them. You
7 then had lunch with Allister Hanvey and he told you
8 everything. Is that right?
9 A. I don't remember going out for lunch with Allister.
10 Q. Again, that's not something that could have come from
11 Andrea McKee, could it? That must be from you?
12 A. That's true. Uh-huh.
13 Q. Then:
14 "It was that same night that Andrea McKee,
15 Michael McKee and Tracey went to Portadown Police
16 Station. They went to make a statement that night and
17 I remember John McAteer phoning that day to ask me to
18 get Tracey up to make a statement, and, as she was
19 working in the Chinese restaurant at, I think,
20 West Street, I phoned the Tae Kwon Do club to get
21 Michael and Andrea to collect her after work, as she
22 finished at 10.30, and take her to the police station."
23 [14899].
24 Is that what happened? Is that the sequence of
25 events? The police came to see you -- John McAteer that
29
1 is. You didn't tell him anything. You then had
2 a conversation with Allister Hanvey in which he told you
3 everything, and you then went to the police station and
4 gave the statement?
5 A. No. The police came out to the house, you know, to
6 chat. Then I had to go into the police station and
7 filled in a questionnaire, which yous would have
8 a report of that. Then two days later, if I am right,
9 10th May, my auntie picked me up from work and brought
10 me to the police station.
11 Q. Can you explain how that came about, that you were
12 brought back in?
13 A. I know now.
14 Q. Did you not know at the time?
15 A. No.
16 Q. You see, what Andrea McKee has said is that you were
17 telling anybody who cared to listen at the Tae Kwon Do
18 club what you knew about the murder and you were
19 overheard by an off-duty policeman who asked her who you
20 were, and, as a result of that, she took you to the
21 police. What do you say about that?
22 A. I say that Andrea was -- what can I say -- she was the
23 chatterbox at the Tae Kwon Do gym. It was talked about
24 freely at the gym, where she spoke about it as well.
25 Information, she had known Robbie Atkinson,
30
1 Eleanor Atkinson, the Hanveys, everybody. It was all
2 discussed -- just not me, it was discussed by everybody
3 and it was the talk of the town really and the police --
4 I think a police officer had said to Andrea, asked
5 Andrea questions and Andrea told him about
6 Robbie Atkinson phoning the Hanvey house.
7 That's what I know of it now, and, also, Andrea met
8 police officers in the dark at a cemetery, I think, to
9 discuss it as well.
10 Q. Can you tell us why your aunt would make you the subject
11 of all this? If this is talk all round the town and
12 everybody is talking about it and she is the chatterbox,
13 why she would take you to the police?
14 A. Because I was a chatterbox as well.
15 Q. Wasn't it that you knew what was going on?
16 A. No.
17 Q. So she just thought she would take you to a police
18 station at 10.30 one night after you finished work to
19 make you make a statement because you were a chatterbox.
20 Is that it?
21 A. Well, it was -- any information -- if I can say any
22 information that I had heard I talked to Andrea about
23 and it just went from there. I was brought to the
24 police station. They said, "You seen it". I said
25 "I didn't see it", which is true, and, you know, I can't
31
1 describe what the police station was like, because it
2 was horrific.
3 Q. You are telling us, are you, that you plainly told the
4 police that you did not see the fight and did not see
5 who kicked Robert Hamill?
6 A. That's what I said in the questionnaire.
7 Q. I know that's what you said in the questionnaire. Did
8 you say that when the statement was taken from you,
9 though?
10 A. I just went along with it. They suggested names, and
11 obviously hearsay as well.
12 Q. It was Mr McAteer, wasn't it, who was involved
13 throughout?
14 A. No idea.
15 Q. Well, John McAteer is the person who took the
16 questionnaire from you, isn't he?
17 A. Well, that's who it says. I don't recall him. I don't
18 know what he looks like.
19 Q. And it was Mr McAteer who took the statement from you,
20 wasn't it?
21 A. The same man, yes.
22 Q. So was there no conversation about this, about how it
23 was suddenly you were telling different things?
24 A. Say that again.
25 Q. Did you not have a conversation with him about why it
32
1 was you were saying on 8th May you had seen nothing, but
2 on 9th May that you had seen all this?
3 A. There was a lot of pressure in the police room.
4 Q. Tell us about the pressure.
5 A. I now know the police -- I was in a room and it was
6 light and dark. They said, "We can prove you seen it".
7 I say, "I didn't see it". They said, "We can prove it".
8 They banged the table. They said they would put me in
9 jail. They were also -- sorry. They also said that
10 they would break down my mum's door, and I now know that
11 they were in another room questioning someone else and
12 just gathering loads of information, because they wanted
13 to get people for this murder, because it had changed
14 from a beating up to a murder, and I just went along
15 with it.
16 Q. Who was banging on the table?
17 A. The police.
18 Q. Which police?
19 A. The police that was in front of me.
20 Q. There were two police involved, as far as we know.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. One is John McAteer, who is the man who took the
23 questionnaire from you in the first place.
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. The other was a policewoman. Which one of them was
33
1 banging the table?
2 A. I don't know. I just remember the banging on the table.
3 Q. Were they standing up and banging the table or sitting
4 down and doing it?
5 A. I think they were standing up.
6 Q. Were you sitting down?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. So they were standing over you, were they, banging the
9 table?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. What was Andrea doing?
12 A. She was just sitting beside me.
13 Q. And you say they were threatening to beat your mother's
14 door down?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Which of them made that threat?
17 A. I'm not too sure.
18 Q. Did they say why they would bash your mother's door
19 down?
20 A. They said they could prove that I seen it, and I didn't.
21 Q. What would banging your mother's door down have to do
22 about that?
23 A. They said they would bang down the door to arrest me and
24 put me in jail.
25 Q. Uh-huh. Did they tell you what they would put you in
34
1 jail for?
2 A. They did. I can't remember.
3 Q. But despite that, you gave them a statement, a lot of
4 which was true, didn't you?
5 A. A lot of which was true, yes.
6 Q. So you were able to be composed enough at the age of --
7 what were you -- 17?
8 A. Not composed in any way, no.
9 Q. But you were able to tell them enough truth to make
10 perhaps two, two and a half pages of true statement?
11 A. It is not all -- the statement is not all true.
12 Q. If we go back to your mother's statement, please, on
13 page [14899], page 4 of the statement.
14 A. I don't know where it is.
15 Q. Have you got page 4 there?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. This is the part of your mother's statement where she is
18 talking about you going to the police station to give
19 the statement.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. It starts off:
22 "That night Michael", that's your stepfather --
23 sorry, it is Michael McKee, "came down and sat with me
24 after he had dropped them off at the police station.
25 I think he went to his house first before he came down
35
1 because they were a long time. I phoned up a couple of
2 times to see how she was doing and I spoke to
3 John McAteer who told me she was doing all right and her
4 aunt Andrea was with her. They were dropped out later,
5 but I don't know who left them home. Tracey was saying
6 she told the truth. She was agitated."
7 Can you explain how your mother came to say that,
8 when you came back, you told her you had told the truth?
9 A. No. I told the police what they wanted.
10 Q. What did you tell your mother about it?
11 A. I don't remember.
12 Q. Did you not go back and say, "I want to make a complaint
13 against the police. They stood over me. They bashed
14 the table. They threatened to send me to prison and
15 they threatened to beat your door down"?
16 A. This is the police we are talking about?
17 Q. Why didn't you tell your mother all that?
18 A. I didn't.
19 Q. Why not?
20 A. Because that's the police. The police think they rule
21 and, you know, they pressurised me into doing that and
22 I just wanted to try to forget about it, because it was
23 horrendous.
24 Q. Did the police have anything further to do with you
25 after this in the following weeks?
36
1 A. I don't know.
2 Q. Did the policewoman who took the statement come to visit
3 you?
4 A. I don't recall it.
5 Q. Did John McAteer come to visit you?
6 A. I don't know.
7 Q. Did they try to get you another job?
8 A. Did the police try to get me another job?
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. No, I don't think so.
11 Q. Did they try to help you get into the navy?
12 A. I don't know. No. I don't think so.
13 Q. Did they help you move house?
14 A. No.
15 Q. You see, because they have told us, and we have
16 statements to this effect, that the police officers came
17 and did home visits afterwards and that they tried to
18 help you move jobs, including getting into the navy, and
19 you don't --
20 A. Sure, I could never get into the navy with asthma. So
21 I don't think that's -- that's not true.
22 Q. I am not suggesting you got into the navy. I am
23 suggesting they helped you try. Do you remember that?
24 A. No.
25 Q. So this was it then, was it? This was brutal, bullying
37
1 police who forced a statement out of you and then left
2 you alone afterwards? Is that fair?
3 A. I can't remember them coming to see me. No, I can't
4 remember.
5 Q. Then after this she goes on, your mother:
6 "I think the following morning", so this will be the
7 10th or so of May, "the Hanveys rang my home telephone
8 number and Tracey spoke to them. I think Tracey said it
9 was Elizabeth. She told Tracey that Allister was
10 arrested this morning. Tracey started crying and I told
11 her to go to work to keep herself occupied."
12 Is that the way it happened; that the morning you
13 gave your statement the Hanveys rang up to say that
14 Allister had been arrested as a result?
15 A. They would have phoned and told me.
16 Q. Blaming you?
17 A. I don't know if they knew I had made a statement then.
18 Q. When you left the police station, what did you expect to
19 happen about the people you named? Had you any idea?
20 A. I thought they would be lifted.
21 Q. Then it goes on:
22 "I'm not aware of anyone putting pressure on Tracey,
23 but her friends stopped talking to her and I think she
24 thought we might have to move out of [the area] and she
25 wouldn't want this to happen."
38
1 That's right, isn't it?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. If we look then to see what your -- sorry, I also need,
4 if I may, to show you something that happened later,
5 that your mother was shown a diagram of the jacket that
6 she recognised as being similar to one you had bought.
7 Let's see if that helps you. It is at page [05119].
8 A. Thank you.
9 Q. I am not suggesting you have seen this document. If you
10 look at the last four lines of this page:
11 "Showed AM5 and AM6 to", and you will have to take
12 my word for it that it is your mother's name that has
13 been blanked out there.
14 A. Uh-huh.
15 Q. "... on 5.3.01. She stated that the jacket looked
16 similar to the one Allister Hanvey had. However, she
17 thought the one Allister had was slightly shorter and
18 had black cuffs and a black waistband. She can't recall
19 orange stripes on the sleeves."
20 Now, if we look at page [70098], this is AM5. If we
21 go over the page, [70099], we see a catalogue,
22 autumn/winter 1996. At the top right-hand corner, there
23 is a silver sports jacket.
24 If we go over the page again to [70100], that's it
25 blown up. What the police were showing your mother, and
39
1 we will see they showed your stepfather as well, was
2 this catalogue of a wholesalers. They were suggesting
3 that might be the jacket which you had bought from
4 Paranoid and which might have got destroyed.
5 Does that help you recollect what you might have
6 bought him?
7 A. No.
8 Q. All right. Now, if we can have a look at your
9 stepfather's statement, please --
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Before we leave that diagram, there is
11 a price there. Is that the wholesaler's price?
12 MR UNDERWOOD: That's the wholesaler's price, yes.
13 If we go to page [17338], please --
14 A. Okay.
15 Q. -- this is your stepfather's statement. As you know,
16 this was made to the police in 2000. If we go halfway
17 down the first page, he is talking about 27th April.
18 Halfway down, towards the right-hand side:
19 "She said they all came back from the Coach and
20 there was a fight."
21 Do you see?
22 A. Uh-huh.
23 Q. "She said a lot ran up to the fight and Allister Hanvey
24 was there."
25 Do you remember telling him that?
40
1 A. No.
2 Q. Okay. If we go over the page to [17339], talking about
3 soon afterwards, three lines down:
4 "She said that Allister wanted to take her out for
5 lunch. She said Allister wanted to meet her and he had
6 given her dog's abuse on the phone and pestered her
7 until she gave in and he wanted to talk to her to get it
8 sorted out."
9 Again, did you tell him, or would he have reason to
10 believe, that Allister and you were talking to each
11 other shortly afterwards?
12 A. Is that not something similar to what my mum said?
13 Q. It is, and I am asking you whether it is true.
14 A. I am not too sure. I wasn't going out with Allister at
15 the time. I can't remember it.
16 Q. All right. If we go halfway down this page, on the
17 right-hand side there is a sentence that starts:
18 "I remember after Tracey met Allister ..."
19 A. Uh-huh.
20 Q. "... for lunch, Tracey said that Allister felt quite
21 proud of what he'd done. This was after", that's your
22 mother, "had asked her how she got on with Allister.
23 Tracey also said that Allister said, 'Sure, he was only
24 a Fenian bastard', and that was the type of attitude he
25 had."
41
1 How did that happen? How did your stepfather get
2 that information?
3 A. I'm not too sure. I can't remember having the
4 conversation with him.
5 Q. Can you give us any explanation other than this: that
6 you did, in fact, meet Allister Hanvey somewhere between
7 27th April and 9th May and he told you what had happened
8 and that he was proud of it?
9 A. It could have been maybe I met him and I made it up,
10 just like I made it up to him whenever I said about
11 going to the police whenever I didn't.
12 Q. Uh-huh. Going further on:
13 "Again, sometime when I was sitting at the kitchen
14 table with Tracey, Tracey said she had went over to the
15 back of the Land Rover to talk to Robert Atkinson. She
16 said she told him, 'That's the ones on the street', and
17 Allister to go on, and he told Allister to, 'Get them
18 clothes burnt'."
19 So there is your stepfather saying that you told him
20 that Robbie Atkinson had advised Allister to burn his
21 clothes on the night.
22 Can you help us with that, comment on it?
23 A. No, I can't comment.
24 Q. Then it goes on:
25 "Tracey said she had been sitting on the kerb and
42
1 Atkinson was by himself at the back of the Land Rover,
2 so she went over to him and that's when she heard him
3 telling them to go and telling Allister to burn his
4 clothes."
5 A. Again, if I can just say that this statement was written
6 three years after, you know. You know, it's all similar
7 to my mum's. It is all just all talk.
8 Q. Why do you tell us to note that these statements were
9 made three years later? What's your point?
10 A. My point is that my mum, Jim, and Andrea McKee would
11 have -- they would sit and talk about it all the time.
12 Q. Are you suggesting --
13 A. The information is all very, very similar I just find.
14 It's, you know, as if -- I don't know. I don't know.
15 Q. All right. Then if we go to the next page [17340],
16 page 3 of the statement, halfway down on the right-hand
17 side there is a sentence that starts:
18 "I remember on the night Tracey went to the police
19 station ..."
20 Do you see that?
21 A. Yes. Uh-huh.
22 Q. "I remember on the night Tracey went to the police
23 station to make her statement, I was in bed. We got
24 a phone call to our house. I think [your mother], told
25 me that Andrea called to say she was with Tracey and
43
1 would look after her. I think John McAteer took this
2 statement. I remember Andrea later saying that she came
3 from the gym to the Chinese and took Tracey to the
4 station. I remember I got up that night and, when
5 Tracey came home, she was crying and [your mother] was
6 comforting her. I also remember, although I don't know
7 exactly when, Tracey said Allister had got rid of the
8 clothes and burnt them."
9 Now, again, when you got back from the police
10 station and you were upset, surely, if you were upset
11 because you had been bullied and threatened with the
12 door being knocked down and threatened with being
13 arrested, you would have told your mother and your
14 stepfather?
15 A. I was afraid.
16 Q. What were you afraid of?
17 A. The police.
18 Q. But a 17-year-old girl is going to say that sort of
19 thing to her mother, isn't she, if she is threatened by
20 the police?
21 A. Not really, because my mum, Andrea and Jim were all
22 talking about this. It was easier for me to go along
23 with what everybody was saying.
24 Q. I am not getting to that point. The point I am getting
25 at is that you had just gone through a very horrible
44
1 experience where everybody was talking about it, but you
2 are the one suffering, because you are the one who was
3 going to get your boyfriend lifted, and you are the one
4 who has had one or two people perhaps leaning over
5 a table, banging it and threatening to beat your mum's
6 door down.
7 Surely, if you were upset and crying to your mum,
8 you are going to tell her some of that?
9 A. I never told anybody.
10 Q. In this statement he goes on about the jacket:
11 "Tracey had bought him a silver jacket from Paranoid
12 for that Christmas, that's 1996 ..."
13 And he goes on talking about it there.
14 Again, do you accept that's probably true, that you
15 had probably did buy a silver jacket and people had seen
16 it?
17 A. It could have been a silver jacket. I don't know.
18 I think there was an Adidas jacket with an orange
19 stripe. I am not too sure.
20 Q. Right. Now, if we go to -- I don't have much more for
21 you. Another ten minutes or so and we will be through
22 this. All right?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. I want to ask you to look at page [17591], please:
25 I want to pick up the middle three paragraphs of this.
45
1 A. Uh-huh.
2 Q. This is a note made by Mr Davison of the Director of
3 Public Prosecutions Office of a meeting you had on
4 17th October 1997. I will just read it to you, if I
5 may:
6 "On 17th October 1997, at 3.30 pm, I attended
7 a consultation between Gordon Kerr, QC, and Witness A."
8 That's what you were being called then, wasn't it:
9 "Detective Superintendent Cooke, Detective Sergeant
10 Bradley and Detective Constable McAteer were also
11 present. Witness A was accompanied by her parents.
12 "Witness A is a pleasant-looking, reasonably
13 well-dressed young woman. As she walked into the room,
14 she looked worried, and as soon as Gordon Kerr started
15 to talk to her, she started to cry. She cried quite
16 frequently during the consultation, but was able to
17 relate the events of the night more or less in
18 accordance with her statement. She had not had
19 an opportunity to refresh her memory. She is reasonably
20 articulate and seemed to be telling the truth. If she
21 were to give evidence, I consider that she would come
22 across as very truthful.
23 "At the end of the consultation, she was asked about
24 the possibility of giving evidence. She stated that she
25 would rather die than give evidence. She said that she
46
1 wouldn't give evidence because she loves
2 Allister Hanvey, to whom she was formerly engaged. She
3 stated that it was hard to give evidence against the
4 others because she knows them all. She and her family
5 are all very worried about the possibility of attack by
6 Loyalist paramilitaries. Her father stated that he
7 would like to see the accused going to court, but he
8 stated that going to court will destroy Tracey."
9 Now, first of all, given that you were there with
10 your mum and your stepdad, did you have any conversation
11 with them before you got there about what you were going
12 to say and how this was going to go?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Did you know why you were being interviewed?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. What did you think?
17 A. It was to do with the Inquiry, the DPP or something.
18 I'm not too sure.
19 Q. What we have been told by them is that this was to do
20 with testing your evidence to see whether they could
21 prosecute the people you named in your witness
22 statement. Did you understand that?
23 A. Yes. I can understand it, yes.
24 Q. Did you understand it at the time, I mean?
25 A. I'm not too sure. I'm not too sure.
47
1 Q. Okay.
2 A. I just know that these people wanted to question me.
3 Q. Yes. What we are also told is that you were asked about
4 matters that were in your police statement, the one we
5 looked at earlier, but they didn't show you that
6 statement again. Is that right?
7 A. If it says -- if they say that, that's true then.
8 I can't remember.
9 Q. What they say was important from your point of view was,
10 although you had not seen your statement again, they
11 asked you questions and the answers you gave them were
12 the same as in your police statement.
13 What do you say about that?
14 A. I am not going to -- you know, what I said in my
15 statement I am never going to forget, you know, because
16 I implicated people in the murder of Robert Hamill and
17 I didn't see it. So I am never going to forget that to
18 the day I die.
19 Q. When they asked you, "What did you see on the night?"
20 and you told them you saw the five people you named in
21 your statement --
22 A. Uh-huh.
23 Q. -- why did you do that?
24 A. I didn't know -- I just did. I didn't know I could tell
25 them the truth. I didn't tell anybody the truth.
48
1 I didn't know I could tell anybody the truth. I just
2 said what I had said previously.
3 Q. But they were not asking you whether the statement was
4 true, were they?
5 A. What do you mean?
6 Q. I mean, they were asking you what you saw, weren't they?
7 A. Yes, but I had said in my statement that I saw these
8 people, yes.
9 Q. But they were not asking to you say the statement was
10 untrue. They were simply asking you "What did you see,
11 Tracey?"
12 A. So I told them what I said in the first statement.
13 Q. That's the position, isn't it? That's what happened?
14 A. Yes. Uh-huh.
15 Q. The reason you did that, so you now say, is that you
16 didn't realise you could tell them the truth. Is that
17 it?
18 A. I just kept to my same story. I just kept to the same
19 story and I wanted to get out of there as quickly as
20 possible.
21 Q. Nobody was banging the table, were they?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Or threatening you?
24 A. No.
25 Q. So why didn't you just tell them the truth?
49
1 A. I have no answer for that. I just went along with what
2 I had said before.
3 Q. Did you, in fact, love Allister?
4 A. Did I love him? Yes.
5 Q. Were you engaged at that stage?
6 A. No.
7 Q. These others, did you actually know them, the ones you
8 named in your statement?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did you --
11 A. Well, not all of them. Sorry. I didn't know "Muck".
12 I never ...
13 Q. Is that why you had to call him "Muck" and not
14 Marc Hobson?
15 A. No. I don't know -- I know him now, but I didn't then.
16 Q. Did you know, on 17th October when you had this meeting,
17 that these people were all in prison?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. So by telling Mr Davison and Mr Kerr what you told them,
20 you were sustaining the case against them that kept them
21 in prison. Did you know that?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Did it cross your mind to say to these gentlemen, "Look,
24 what I said in my police statement was untrue. I was
25 young. I was gullible. I was vindictive. I was being
50
1 bullied. Now let them go"?
2 A. I didn't say anything. I just went along with my first
3 statement.
4 Q. You see, it is not just a case of going along with your
5 first statement, is it? It is you passing up the
6 opportunity to have a number of innocent people released
7 from prison, on your case.
8 A. I never had any -- I can understand what you are saying.
9 I have never had any legal advice. I never knew I could
10 do that. As far as I was concerned, I had some
11 people -- told lies and there is nothing I could do
12 about it.
13 Q. But you are obviously telling us you know the difference
14 between truth and lies. That's fair, isn't it?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. You know right from wrong, you are telling us?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. So you knew it was wrong to maintain a lie that kept
19 people in prison?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Can you give us any help at all, if your statement was
22 full of lies, why you didn't tell the truth in October?
23 A. I ask myself that question all the time. I have to live
24 with that. I have no answer for that.
25 Q. But you did make a decision, didn't you, that you
51
1 weren't going to give evidence?
2 A. Yes, because it would be all lies.
3 Q. Well, if that's so, if you made a decision not to give
4 evidence because it was all lies, why did you tell the
5 Director of Public Prosecutions and prosecuting counsel
6 that you weren't going to give evidence because you
7 loved Allister?
8 A. Because I did love Allister as well.
9 Q. But what was the harm at that stage in saying, "I am not
10 going to give evidence. That statement is untrue. Let
11 them go"?
12 A. I didn't know I could do that.
13 Q. But you did know you could refuse to give evidence. Is
14 that right?
15 A. They could force me to give evidence.
16 Q. You say you hadn't had legal advice. How about advice
17 from paramilitaries?
18 A. I didn't have any advice from paramilitaries.
19 Q. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx? You had a chat with him, didn't you?
20 A. I don't recall it.
21 Q. Really? You know who xxxxxxxxxxx was, don't you?
22 A. Uh-huh.
23 Q. You know you talked to him, didn't you?
24 A. No, I don't remember talking to him.
25 Q. No? No advice from anybody about what you were going to
52
1 say to the DPP or the police. Is that right?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Is that what you are telling us?
4 A. That's what I am telling you, yes.
5 Q. What did you expect to happen at the end of this
6 meeting?
7 A. That it would all go away.
8 Q. So why not tell the truth then?
9 A. Again, I just didn't.
10 Q. Both these gentlemen, Mr Davison and Mr Kerr, who is the
11 chief prosecutor, have said they took the view, when you
12 were telling them what you had seen, you were being
13 truthful. They both have that completely wrong, have
14 they?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. So, you, a gullible young girl who had been bullied into
17 making a false statements, were able to persuade these
18 two seasoned prosecutors and get it wrong. Is that
19 right?
20 A. I just went -- I acted and said the things that
21 corresponded with my last statement.
22 Q. Finally, can we have a look at page [00270]? I think
23 you have seen this recently, haven't you?
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. It's an attendance note, written by the coroner, of
53
1 a conversation you had with him in November 1999?
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. If we just pick up the second line on the right-hand
4 side:
5 "She said that she knew I was planning to hold
6 an inquest and was very concerned about either giving
7 evidence in person or the contents of her statement
8 being read out in court. When she spoke to me, she was
9 very tearful and I was completely satisfied that she was
10 genuine. She said that she had been threatened on
11 a number of occasions by Loyalists and, as a result, she
12 had to leave Portadown. She now has a house in Belfast
13 and a new career in the Civil Service. She rarely
14 returns to Portadown, although her mother still lives
15 there. She told me that even reading out her statement
16 in court with her being referred to by a code letter
17 would identify her. If that happened, she would have to
18 leave her present address and possibly her present
19 employment. Those who threatened her were known to her.
20 She has no doubts at all that if she were involved in
21 the inquest in any way she would be in real danger from
22 Loyalist paramilitaries."
23 Now why didn't you just say, "My statement was
24 false"?
25 A. I didn't know I could.
54
1 Q. The prosecution had gone away, hadn't it? That had been
2 dropped as a result of you refusing to give evidence.
3 You knew that?
4 A. I couldn't give evidence and I couldn't have my
5 statement read out, because it was lies, and I knew what
6 I had said was wrong.
7 Q. Was it true when you told the coroner that you thought
8 you would be in real danger from Loyalist
9 paramilitaries?
10 A. Yes, because it was a false statement.
11 Q. So surely the way out of that is to tell the coroner it
12 was a false statement?
13 A. I didn't know I could do that.
14 Q. Did you tell the Loyalist paramilitaries it was a false
15 statement?
16 A. I had no contact with them.
17 Q. Did you tell anybody it was a false statement?
18 A. No.
19 Q. So all these people who were threatening you, abusing
20 you, did you tell any of them that it was a false
21 statement?
22 A. No.
23 Q. So is the first time you told anybody it was a false
24 statement when you told Allister about it then?
25 A. I think I went to the solicitors and told the solicitor
55
1 that it was false.
2 Q. It didn't occur to you, when people were threatening you
3 and abusing you, that actually that police statement was
4 bullied out of you and it wasn't true?
5 A. No, I never said anything.
6 Q. That's the sort of thing that would have got you a lot
7 of sympathy in the community, wouldn't it?
8 A. It really wasn't a community because I had did wrong and
9 told lies. So nobody wanted to know me. I didn't know
10 what to do.
11 MR UNDERWOOD: I have no further questions. Thank you.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Can you just help us about two things,
13 please? How did you get on with your mother?
14 A. Not very well. My mum was abusive to me. She was
15 vindictive. She was nasty, although there is times that
16 I got on well with her, but it's not a good
17 relationship.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: So why did you tell her all the things that
19 you did tell her?
20 A. I don't know. It was just talk. At that stage, we
21 probably got on better whenever, you know, I was talking
22 to her.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: At the interview when you say you made this
24 false statement, how did the policewoman behave towards
25 you?
56
1 A. When was this? Sorry.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: When you made the statement that you say
3 contained lies.
4 A. Yes, yes.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: You know the occasion?
6 A. Yes.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: How did the policewoman behave towards you?
8 A. To be very honest with you, I -- you say that there is
9 a policewoman and a man. I just thought they were men.
10 I don't recall a woman.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Perhaps it is time for our break
12 now.
13 MR UNDERWOOD: Perhaps we could use that time for a little
14 purpose, which is that I wonder if you could be kind
15 enough to sign an authority for us to get your medical
16 records relating to that conversation that you say was
17 inaccurately recorded from the psychiatrist. Would you
18 do that while we have a break?
19 A. I will consult with my counsel.
20 Q. Is there any reason why you wouldn't do it?
21 A. I'd just like to be clear what I'm doing.
22 MR UNDERWOOD: Very well. Thank you.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Ten minutes.
24 (11.55 am)
25 (A short break)
57
1 (12.05 pm)
2 MR UNDERWOOD: Mrs Hanvey, I know you have had a discussion
3 with your counsel about the document. Thank you for
4 that. I now wonder whether other people may have some
5 questions for you.
6 MR WOLFE: No questions, sir.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Adair?
8 Questions from MR ADAIR
9 MR ADAIR: Can you see me, Mrs Hanvey, now?
10 A. I can, yes.
11 Q. My name is Adair. I appear, so you understand this --
12 because for reasons I have been told I should state this
13 for the record -- for, amongst others, two police
14 officers who took the statement from you. Do you
15 understand?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. I am not going to be very long with you, Mrs Hanvey.
18 There are just a few things I want to ask you about and
19 suggest to you.
20 Now, at the start of your evidence you told us that,
21 before you made the witness statement to the police,
22 there had been talk in the town about the incident. Is
23 that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. As I understand it -- and correct me if I am wrong --
58
1 part of the reason that you agreed with the suggestion
2 of those that were involved in the murder was because of
3 what you had heard in the town. Am I right on that?
4 A. The suggestion from the police and what I had heard in
5 the town, yes.
6 Q. Now, had you heard in the town -- and we will come to
7 who it was you heard that from -- the names of those
8 involved in the murder of Robert Hamill?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did those names include the names that you mentioned in
11 your statement?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Who told you that Dean Forbes was involved in the
14 murder?
15 A. I have no idea.
16 Q. Well, think back. Somebody told you who was involved in
17 a murder, Mrs Hanvey. It is not something you hear
18 every day, is it?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Who told you that Dean Forbes was involved in this
21 murder?
22 A. I have no idea.
23 Q. Why have you no idea?
24 A. Because I can't remember.
25 Q. Why is it you can't remember?
59
1 A. Because it's nearly 12 years ago.
2 Q. So you can't remember who told you that Dean Forbes was
3 one of the murderers?
4 A. That's right.
5 Q. Was it a member of your family?
6 A. A member of my family?
7 Q. Yes.
8 A. No.
9 Q. Was it a friend?
10 A. I have no idea who it was.
11 Q. Well, can you remember where you were told that
12 Dean Forbes was involved in this murder?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Who told you that Allister Hanvey was involved in the
15 murder?
16 A. I made that up.
17 Q. So when you put in Hanvey's name amongst those involved
18 in the kicking, is that something then that wasn't
19 suggested to you, it is something you made up? Is that
20 what you are saying?
21 A. Yes. It would be -- it was about town too, but I --
22 I didn't see him -- I didn't see anybody kick or punch
23 anybody.
24 Q. When you say "it was about town", what you are saying to
25 us, I assume, is that somebody told you that
60
1 Allister Hanvey was involved in the murder.
2 Who was that?
3 A. It was me.
4 Q. So were you putting it about the town that
5 Allister Hanvey was involved in the murder?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Before you made your police statement?
8 A. I don't remember.
9 Q. Well, you have just told us that is what you were doing.
10 Let me ask the question again: were you putting it
11 about Portadown that Allister Hanvey was involved in
12 this murder before you made your police statement?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Who did you tell?
15 A. My mum, my auntie.
16 Q. Anybody else?
17 A. I don't know.
18 Q. Why were you doing that?
19 A. Because I was very vindictive and a bitch.
20 Q. So because you are vindictive and a bitch, you were
21 putting it about Portadown that Allister Hanvey was
22 involved in a murder. Is that right?
23 A. That's right.
24 Q. So when it appears in your police statement that he was
25 one of the persons involved in the kicking of these
61
1 gentlemen on the road, that comes from you, does it,
2 because you are vindictive and a bitch?
3 A. Uh-huh.
4 Q. Who told you that Stacey Bridgett was involved in this
5 murder?
6 A. It was just hearsay.
7 Q. Who told you?
8 A. I don't -- can't remember.
9 Q. What did they say he did, for example?
10 A. I can't remember. That he was involved in the fight.
11 Q. Who told you that "Muck" was involved in the murder?
12 A. Again, it was hearsay, and the police suggested those
13 names as well.
14 Q. Who told you that Rory Robinson was involved in the
15 murder?
16 A. Again, the same.
17 Q. Who?
18 A. Hearsay and the police.
19 Q. I take it by "hearsay" you mean that somebody told you.
20 Is that what you mean by "hearsay", or what exactly do
21 you mean by "hearsay"? That somebody told you that
22 somebody else had told them? What exactly do you mean
23 when you say "hearsay"?
24 A. Hearsay is like Chinese whispers. Somebody told
25 somebody, somebody told somebody else, and the story
62
1 goes on.
2 Q. Can you remember who told you the Chinese whispers --
3 A. No.
4 Q. -- in relation to any of these men?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Do we take it then that as far as Forbes, Bridgett,
7 "Muck" and Robinson are concerned, the Chinese whispers
8 in the town were that they were involved in the murder.
9 Is that right?
10 A. That's right.
11 Q. But it was you that was spreading the Chinese whispers
12 in relation to Hanvey?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Were there any other Chinese whispers about Hanvey apart
15 from you?
16 A. I was the one that told my mum and told my auntie.
17 Q. Well, apart from that, did you hear from anybody else
18 that Hanvey was involved in the murder?
19 A. I'm not too sure. I can't remember.
20 Q. You can't remember whether you heard that your on/off
21 boyfriend had been involved in a murder?
22 A. That's right. I can't remember.
23 Q. Is that the truth?
24 A. It's the truth.
25 Q. You can't remember whether you heard round Portadown
63
1 before you made this statement that Hanvey was involved
2 in this murder? Is that what you are telling us?
3 A. I told my mum and I told my auntie that he was involved,
4 being vindictive.
5 Q. What made you so vindictive and such a bitch that you
6 decided to spread a rumour that your on/off boyfriend
7 was involved in a murder? What was it that made you
8 that decision?
9 A. I don't know.
10 Q. I mean, are you saying that that's the way you were,
11 vindictive and so on, at this point in your life? You
12 were a vindictive sort of person?
13 A. At that time of my life, I was under a lot of stress
14 with my mum taking ill. I used drugs as well, which is
15 never -- I have never told anybody. I was in a bad
16 stage in my life and I just did it. I have no reason
17 for it. I have to live with that every day, what I have
18 said.
19 Q. So although nothing had happened between you that night,
20 the night that you saw this incident, nothing to spark
21 any rage against Hanvey, you decided just out of
22 vindictiveness to name him as one of the murderers. Is
23 that what you are saying?
24 A. Allister and I had a very stormy relationship. I have
25 no other reason. I just did it. I was wrong.
64
1 Q. Okay. I want to just take you briefly, Mrs Hanvey, to
2 the making of the witness statement. Do you have the
3 witness statement in front of you?
4 A. Yes.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Does it need to be called up on the screen?
6 A. Do you have a number?
7 MR ADAIR: [17327].
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Now, before we -- and Mr Underwood has dealt with this
10 in some detail with you, so I am not going to repeat,
11 I hope, what he said. Just so the Panel can get
12 a picture in their mind of the room in which you made
13 this statement, do you not, in fact, when you look back,
14 now recollect that there was a woman police officer and
15 a male police officer and your auntie present in this
16 room when you made this statement?
17 A. I remember there was police. There was police persons.
18 I can't say that there was only two. I can remember the
19 room being dark, a very, very large table. I was
20 sitting on one side. The police were at the other.
21 A lot of people walked in and out. It was very hostile.
22 I was very upset. Yes, they banged the table at me and
23 they said they would put me in jail.
24 Q. Okay. Now, can you remember the woman police officer
25 being there or not?
65
1 A. No.
2 Q. Would you accept -- we have heard she was there.
3 A. Yes, that's okay.
4 Q. I don't think anybody is disputing that.
5 A. That's fine.
6 Q. Do you accept there was a woman police officer there?
7 A. Yes, yes.
8 Q. Your auntie was there throughout the thing. Is that
9 right?
10 A. That's right.
11 Q. Now, when you went in, obviously you had some discussion
12 before this written statement started to be taken down.
13 Isn't that right?
14 A. Pardon?
15 Q. Did you have some discussion with the police before they
16 started to write down in written form this statement?
17 A. I can't remember.
18 Q. Were they banging the table from the start?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Did the woman police officer bang the table?
21 A. It was a guy.
22 Q. It was the guy?
23 A. Uh-huh.
24 Q. The policeman?
25 A. Yes.
66
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Was it one or more than one person banging
2 the table?
3 A. I -- there was one, one person, a man.
4 MR ADAIR: Banging the table?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. The other police officer was there at this time. Is
7 that right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And your auntie was there?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Now, in relation to the words that were used about
12 breaking down your mother's door --
13 A. Uh-huh.
14 Q. -- putting you in jail and so on --
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. -- was that the woman police officer or the man police
17 officer?
18 A. It was a man.
19 Q. So the man did all the verbal threats, if we call them
20 that way, and the banging of the table?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And meanwhile, the lady police officer and your auntie
23 stood and watched it or sat and watched it -- is that
24 right --
25 A. My auntie was sitting --
67
1 Q. -- without saying a word? Sorry. I interrupted you.
2 Go on.
3 A. I was just saying my auntie was beside me. There was
4 police officers in front of me. Okay? One was a girl.
5 Yes, they sat. They did nothing.
6 Q. So in the midst of this banging and threats, your
7 auntie, I take it, doesn't raise the slightest objection
8 to what's happening. Is that right?
9 A. That's right.
10 Q. Neither does the lady police officer raise the slightest
11 objection to what's happening?
12 A. That's right.
13 Q. Isn't this just absolute nonsense, Mrs Hanvey?
14 A. No. You are wrong. You are wrong.
15 Q. Were you in tears?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Were you crying?
18 A. That's in tears, yes.
19 Q. Were the tears flowing down your cheeks? Yes or no?
20 A. Tears normally do.
21 Q. Were you shaking?
22 A. Possibly.
23 Q. Were you terrified?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And your auntie and this lady police officer sat and
68
1 watched this, a 17-year-old girl in tears, shaking,
2 terrified, and they sat and watched it and didn't say
3 a word?
4 A. If I could just say there that the police -- it had
5 turned from a sectarian attack to a sectarian murder,
6 and the police wanted to get people in jail for this,
7 and I was the victim -- I was the one who -- I took
8 it -- I was the gullible one. I was the one who agreed
9 to the suggested names.
10 So you have no idea how it felt in that police
11 station in that room. You have no idea. It was awful,
12 horrendous.
13 Q. Yes. So when you went home, were you still a mess, if
14 I can describe it that way?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Did you tell your mum, "Look at me. Look at the state
17 of me. I'm a mess"?
18 A. She would have seen that.
19 Q. She would have seen it?
20 A. And I have been a mess from then, from then.
21 Q. So here you are, and I take it the banging on the
22 table and the threats came before you agreed to the
23 names?
24 A. Yes, yes.
25 Q. So the banging and the threats are made to you. You
69
1 then agree with these four names. You put Hanvey in
2 yourself just because of your vindictiveness. Is that
3 right?
4 A. I agree -- what it is, I agreed to the statement saying
5 I saw these people do it.
6 Q. Presumably, throughout the rest of the interview you are
7 still a terrified, shaking, tearful girl. Is that the
8 picture you want us to imagine?
9 A. That's the right information, yes.
10 Q. But still, at the end of the statement you go on to make
11 up stuff yourself about Allister Hanvey. Go to
12 page [17329].
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. This is you sitting, terrified, crying, shaking, but you
15 still have the vindictiveness to make up that Allister
16 said he jumped on his head and kicked his head and that
17 he didn't have a fractured skull anymore.
18 So you, in this crumbling position, have still
19 enough wit about you that you put in this further lie
20 about Allister. Is that right? Is that right?
21 A. What I remember is -- yes, yes, I was.
22 Q. So even though the police have reduced you to the state
23 you tell us you were in --
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. -- your mind is still sharp enough that you want to put
70
1 in at the end of this statement some further information
2 to further nail down Allister Hanvey?
3 Tell us about that thought process.
4 A. I was being vindictive.
5 Q. But at this stage, you are a tearful, shaking, crying,
6 17-year-old girl, who had just agreed to things the
7 police had put to you because they are banging the
8 table and threatening you?
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. Now, where did you get the strength to then go on and
11 make up what you say are further lies about Hanvey? You
12 told us you made it up.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. So you were able to do that, even though you are in this
15 state?
16 A. I did.
17 Q. Do even you, Mrs Hanvey, not see the nonsense in this?
18 Sitting there, just sitting there, do you not even see
19 the nonsense you are talking?
20 A. No. It's not nonsense.
21 Q. How many names did the police put to you as to who were
22 involved in the killing, the murder, of Robert Hamill?
23 A. The names that's in the -- in this -- in the statement.
24 Q. So they didn't suggest any other names that you
25 disagreed with?
71
1 A. I'm not too sure.
2 Q. So they gave you all those names and you simply agreed
3 that that's what they had done. Is that right?
4 A. They suggested names. Also, my auntie discussed things
5 that went on from what she had heard and that's the way
6 it is. That's it.
7 Q. Okay. If you go to page -- again, I will not be long
8 with this, Mrs Hanvey -- [17328] in your statement.
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. You have told us that essentially the first page in this
11 statement is true. Is that right?
12 A. The first statement -- the first page?
13 Q. The first page about your movements that night and so
14 on.
15 A. Yes, yes.
16 Q. I take it then the police didn't suggest that to you?
17 That's something you volunteered?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Then if you go up to the top of the second page,
20 17383, you met up with Stephen Bloomer at
21 Poundstretcher and just sat down beside him.
22 Now, did you tell the police that or did the police
23 suggest that?
24 A. That's what Stephen Bloomer had in his statement.
25 Q. Did you tell the police that?
72
1 A. They told me that.
2 Q. Did you disagree with them?
3 A. I says, "Well, I must have been".
4 Q. So you were saying, "Yes, that's right. It must be"?
5 A. "It must be". The police said I did see it. I said
6 "I didn't". They said, "We have witnesses to say you
7 seen it".
8 Q. Okay:
9 "I saw two people lying on the street."
10 Now, is that true? Leaving aside the statement, did
11 you see two people lying in the street?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Did you tell the police that?
14 A. That I saw two people lying on the ground? Yes.
15 Q. "One was near the centre of the road and the other was
16 near the footpath close to Eastwoods."
17 Now, is that true? Did you see that?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Did you tell the police that?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. "The person I saw in the middle of the road I thought
22 was dead, as he was not moving."
23 Now, is that true? Did you see that?
24 A. That's true.
25 Q. Did you tell the police that?
73
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. They were writing it down as you told them?
3 A. I am not too sure.
4 Q. Right:
5 "It was at this time I saw a number of persons
6 gathered around the person lying in the centre of the
7 road."
8 Now, is that true? Did you see that?
9 A. I seen -- what I did see, which I could still recollect,
10 is two bodies on the ground motionless, a crowd of
11 people about, but there was nobody kicking or punching
12 them at this stage.
13 Q. These words appear in your statement, Mrs Hanvey.
14 A. Uh-huh.
15 Q. "It was at this time I saw a number of persons gathered
16 around the person lying in the centre of the road."
17 Does that describe in one way or the other, in fact,
18 what you saw?
19 A. What I saw -- no, that's wrong. What I saw was two
20 bodies on the ground, not moving, and a crowd of people
21 around, just around.
22 Q. Well, if we leave out the word "gathered" then,
23 a number of persons around the person lying in the
24 centre of the road, it is pretty accurate to what you
25 saw?
74
1 A. Around the area.
2 Q. Right. So that's true. Is that something you would
3 have told the police?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Right:
6 "These persons were kicking the person on the ground
7 around the head and body."
8 Now, is that true? Did you see that?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Just tell us how that came then to physically be written
11 down. Did the police say to you, "Well, did you see
12 people kicking him on the ground?" and did you say,
13 "No", and did they say, "We will beat in your mother's
14 door. You did", and then did you eventually agree?
15 How did those words get to be there?
16 A. The police said that they knew I was there and that
17 I seen it and they had a witness to say I had seen it.
18 Q. Did you tell you the name of the witness?
19 A. I'm not -- no.
20 Q. Okay.
21 A. No. They said -- I says, "I didn't see it". It was
22 just -- it went on from there. It doesn't make sense.
23 You see, whenever I say, which is the truth, that the
24 two bodies was on the ground and lying motionless,
25 obviously the fight had happened previous to that, you
75
1 know. People were -- there was nobody kicking and
2 punching them. They were just lying on the ground.
3 Q. Did you make it clear in the presence of your auntie and
4 the woman police officer that you had seen nothing?
5 A. I tried.
6 Q. But I take it that what you say is, at this stage, the
7 banging and the threats came around. Is that what you
8 are saying?
9 A. It came around that they says, "You did see it. We know
10 you seen it", that type of thing.
11 Q. Did they say to you, "Well, did you see these people
12 kicking the person on the ground?" and did you just say,
13 "Yes", or did they just make this up and put it in?
14 I am trying to figure out --
15 A. Pretty much. No, no, pretty much that's what happened.
16 Q. What?
17 A. They suggested to me, "You seen these people, A, B, C,
18 D, and E kicking this person on the ground".
19 Q. And you said, "Yes"?
20 A. I says "No", and they goes, "We know you did. We know
21 you did". I said, "No, I didn't". They said, "You know
22 you did", and then that's when the banging of the
23 tables -- you know, "If you don't say -- you know, if
24 you don't do this, we will put you in jail. We will put
25 you in jail for this".
76
1 Q. So you agreed just because of the banging and the
2 threats?
3 A. The pressure, yes.
4 Q. Did you know Dean Forbes?
5 A. From about town.
6 Q. What was he doing that night, incidentally?
7 A. I have no idea.
8 Q. Did you not see him at the scene?
9 A. I have no idea.
10 Q. Did you not see Dean Forbes amongst the crowd that were
11 milling around in Portadown the night that Robert Hamill
12 was murdered? Did you see him or not?
13 A. I can't remember.
14 Q. Yes, you can, Mrs Hanvey.
15 A. No, I can't.
16 Q. So you say then, if that's right, you were prepared to
17 agree that Dean Forbes was involved in kicking somebody
18 on the ground, even though you had not even seen him
19 there? Is that what you are saying?
20 A. What I am saying is, two weeks after the incident
21 happened, there was talk. People suggested -- people
22 said things about who was involved that was about the
23 town and the names were suggested. I don't know.
24 I didn't see Dean Forbes.
25 Q. Allister Hanvey, did you see Allister Hanvey in the
77
1 crowd milling around the middle of Thomas Street on the
2 night that Robert Hamill was murdered?
3 A. Allister, he wasn't with me that night.
4 Q. It is a simple question, Mrs Hanvey.
5 A. No.
6 Q. Did you see Allister Hanvey --
7 A. No.
8 Q. -- in the crowd in Portadown, Thomas Street, the night
9 that Robert Hamill was murdered? Yes or no?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Is that the truth?
12 A. That's the truth.
13 Q. Stacey Bridgett, did you see Stacey Bridgett in the
14 crowd in Thomas Street the night Mr Hamill was murdered?
15 A. I can't remember.
16 Q. Think back.
17 A. Think back. I can't remember. This is like -- sorry,
18 this is 11, 12 years ago. I cannot remember who I seen.
19 There was a lot of people there. I know who I was with.
20 Q. Rory Robinson, did you see Rory Robinson in the crowd in
21 Thomas Street on the night that Robert Hamill was
22 murdered?
23 A. No, I can't remember.
24 Q. So you saw -- you know all these people?
25 A. Yes.
78
1 Q. But -- and we know they were there. Do you understand
2 me?
3 A. Yes, fully.
4 Q. But you don't see any of them?
5 A. I can't remember seeing them.
6 Q. No, it is not a matter of "can't remember", Mrs Hanvey.
7 If you saw any of those people there, you would
8 remember.
9 Now, are you telling this Inquiry that you cannot
10 remember whether any of the people that you named in
11 your statement as being the murderers were, in fact,
12 there at all? Is that what you are saying is the truth?
13 A. What I am saying is the truth is that I cannot remember
14 now, thinking back, of who I seen that night. I know
15 who I was with. These people weren't with me.
16 Q. Well, let's just deal with one then, Allister Hanvey.
17 A. Uh-huh.
18 Q. In no circumstances would you forget whether you had
19 seen Mr Hanvey there that night.
20 Did you see Mr Hanvey there that night?
21 A. No.
22 Q. How did you miss him, do you think?
23 A. How did I miss him?
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. I don't know what you are saying. I don't understand.
79
1 Q. Well, we know he was right in the middle of the crowd.
2 He was a prominent figure in the crowd. We have heard
3 evidence about him being there and about people seeing
4 him and so on. You are his on/off girlfriend. How did
5 you miss seeing him?
6 A. Allister wasn't with me that night.
7 Q. Did you ever ask him was he there? A simple question --
8 A. We never discussed it.
9 Q. A simple question: did you ever ask him was he there,
10 was he involved? Simple question, Mrs Hanvey. Why
11 won't you answer it?
12 A. I did ask him.
13 Q. What did he say?
14 A. He said that he wasn't involved in the fight.
15 Q. When did you ask him?
16 A. I can't remember.
17 Q. What was the problem answering the question straightaway
18 if you asked him?
19 A. Because this is hard. I implicated Allister in this.
20 It's very hard to deal with.
21 Q. Mrs Hanvey, you have also been taken through by
22 Mr Underwood what you did after you made the witness
23 statement in terms of telling people.
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. We now know from your evidence today that you were
80
1 a mess, crying, shaking and so on?
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. We know you didn't tell your mother, your stepfather,
4 anybody else. Isn't that right?
5 A. That's right.
6 Q. We know that Andrea must be keeping this from us, hiding
7 it from us for some reason. Isn't that right? She says
8 that didn't happen. Are you aware of that?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did you tell any friend what had happened to you either
11 when you went back to work or went to school or whatever
12 you were at?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Did you tell a minister?
15 A. No.
16 Q. We know when you went up to see Mr Kerr, QC, and
17 Mr Davison you didn't tell them.
18 A. No.
19 Q. Even after the charges were dropped against Hanvey and
20 others, did you tell anybody?
21 A. After the charges were dropped?
22 Q. Yes. After you --
23 A. After I retracted my statement?
24 Q. After the charges were dropped against Hanvey and the
25 others, who did you first tell about the police
81
1 treatment?
2 A. My solicitor.
3 Q. When was that?
4 A. Possibly -- I am not too sure -- 2000.
5 Q. So you told nobody --
6 A. I am not too sure.
7 Q. -- from 1997 up until 2000?
8 A. Yes. I lived with that for those amount of years.
9 That's why I have bad mental health.
10 Q. I take it you had no vindictiveness against
11 Rory Robinson, Stacey Bridgett, Dean Forbes, "Muck"?
12 You had nothing against them. Is that right?
13 A. That's right. I didn't even know "Muck".
14 Q. Are you saying that, even as a 17-year-old -- you
15 weren't a child; you were 17 years of age -- are you
16 saying that you were content in letting them stay in
17 prison on remand knowing that you had made this false
18 statement about people that you had no vindictiveness
19 against?
20 A. In no way was I content. I did not know what to do.
21 I didn't know I could retract it. I didn't know I could
22 tell the truth. I -- because I just didn't. I didn't.
23 Q. Well, that's just absolute nonsense, Mrs Hanvey. Even
24 a 17-year-old realises they can say to anybody, "Look,
25 that statement I made is totally untrue. It is
82
1 nonsense. I was forced into making it". You know that,
2 don't you?
3 A. But I never did.
4 Q. No.
5 A. Never did.
6 Q. I just formally suggest to you -- well, I will just say
7 to you, Mrs Hanvey, that the evidence we have heard from
8 the two police officers, whom the Panel have seen and
9 heard, was that you were treated as a vulnerable young
10 girl. There was no banging of the table. There were no
11 threats being issued against you. Do you understand?
12 That's the evidence we have heard.
13 A. Uh-huh. I can understand, but they are not going to
14 turn round and tell you what happened in that room, tell
15 the truth.
16 Q. Do you not accept that thereafter the lady police
17 officer and the man police officer were out at your
18 house --
19 A. I can't remember.
20 Q. -- finding out about your welfare, trying to get you
21 a job and so on?
22 A. No, I can't remember.
23 Q. Are you saying you don't even remember that?
24 A. No.
25 MR ADAIR: Okay.
83
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Can you just help us about this, please,
2 Mrs Hanvey? If a man is browbeaten into making
3 a confession of a crime he has not committed, and he
4 signs it, do you see the position then is that he has to
5 explain that away? Do you follow that? He wants to
6 avoid being convicted. Do you follow?
7 A. No. Say it again, please.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Suppose a man is browbeaten into making
9 a confession --
10 A. Uh-huh.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: -- that he has committed a crime that he has
12 not committed and he signs it.
13 A. Uh-huh.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Do you follow that, once he has signed it, he
15 really has to explain it away, has he not, if he wants
16 to avoid being convicted?
17 A. Yes.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, if a witness is browbeaten into making
19 a false statement, you understand that the witness has
20 then got to give evidence?
21 A. Yes.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: And be cross-examined?
23 A. Yes.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Have you thought about this: how does it help
25 the police to browbeat a witness into making a false
84
1 statement that they know to be false?
2 A. How does it help the police?
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Pardon?
4 A. It helps -- oh ...
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, how does it help the police?
6 A. Because they have somebody convicted for the murder.
7 They are seen to be doing their job.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: That depends, does it not, on whether the
9 witness they have browbeaten tells the story in the
10 witness box and is believed. Do you follow?
11 A. Yes.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Doesn't it strike you as being rather
13 difficult to use a witness like that?
14 A. A witness who won't testify?
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, a witness who has simply been
16 browbeaten into giving a lying story.
17 A. Yes.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: How good a witness is he going to be?
19 A. Not good.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: No. Thank you.
21 A. That's why -- yes. That's why I'm here.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr McKenna?
23 MR McGRORY: I am in your hands because of the time, sir.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: We will go on until 1.15 because of the
25 couple of breaks we have had this morning.
85
1 Questions from MR McGRORY
2 MR McGRORY: My name is McGrory. Can you see me?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. I represent the family of the young man who was beaten
5 to death on the night of 27th April 1997.
6 Do you remember the night?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. His mother is here in this room, as are a number of
9 other members of his family, Mrs Hanvey.
10 A. I'm sure. Uh-huh.
11 Q. Unfortunately, you are not in the room. You are giving
12 evidence in a different room, so you can't see them,
13 sure you can't?
14 A. No.
15 Q. You can't look them in the eye and say what you are
16 saying right now.
17 A. No.
18 Q. Is that why you wanted a video link?
19 A. No. I wanted a video link because one of the sisters of
20 the Hamills attacked me outside the Golden Bridge
21 restaurant and I didn't want to have to come to see her
22 or any of the family.
23 Q. If that is true -- and I don't think we want to get into
24 that --
25 A. Uh-huh.
86
1 Q. -- you know what they look like and they know what you
2 look like?
3 A. Of course.
4 Q. So it doesn't make any difference whether you are in the
5 room or not really, sure it doesn't, in terms of that
6 matter?
7 A. No.
8 Q. You see, you are telling a huge big lie right now, I am
9 suggesting to you, Mrs Hanvey.
10 A. I am not telling lies.
11 Q. Do you find it difficult telling lies?
12 A. I have lied in the past.
13 Q. Oh, yes, but do you find it difficult?
14 A. It depends.
15 Q. Do you find it difficult looking someone in the eye and
16 telling them a lie?
17 A. I find it more difficult.
18 Q. And, of course, the bigger the lie, the more difficult
19 it is. Isn't that right?
20 A. That would be right.
21 Q. When you sat across the table from Constable McAteer and
22 a certain very senior policewoman, you looked them in
23 the eye when you spoke to them, did you not?
24 A. No.
25 Q. What you told them, I am suggesting to you, was the
87
1 truth --
2 A. It wasn't the truth.
3 Q. -- back on 10th May 1997, because if we accept what you
4 tell us today, Mrs Hanvey, then, when you told the
5 police that Allister Hanvey, amongst others, jumped all
6 over Robert Hamill and kicked him, that was a lie you
7 told the police.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You were telling them a lie then about someone close to
10 you, whom you knew.
11 A. Uh-huh.
12 Q. Not a stranger. He wasn't a stranger, sure he wasn't?
13 A. Allister? No.
14 Q. But if that was a lie, that lie had consequences, very
15 serious consequences. Do you understand that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Those consequences were that he would be arrested for
18 murder?
19 A. That's right.
20 Q. The consequences for someone arrested and convicted of
21 murder are life imprisonment. You were aware of that?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Now you come here today and you tell us you were
24 vindictive and you were a bitch and that's why you did
25 that.
88
1 A. That's right.
2 Q. Are you seriously saying you were so vindictive, so
3 vindictive towards this boy, who was your boyfriend only
4 a short time beforehand, that you would put him away to
5 jail for life if that wasn't true?
6 A. I knew -- I knew that would happen.
7 Q. So you are such a bad person that you would do that?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You see, I don't accept that, Mrs Hanvey. I don't think
10 you are such a bad person that you went to the police on
11 10th May 1997 and told that lie. You told the truth
12 then, didn't you?
13 A. No.
14 Q. You are not the sort of a person who just could go to
15 the police and tell them somebody was a murderer when
16 they weren't?
17 A. That's what I told the police. I told the police that
18 I seen people kicking and punching Mr Hamill, and
19 I didn't.
20 Q. So are you telling us that you are such an evil person
21 that you went to the police on 10th May and you gave
22 a detailed account of Allister Hanvey murdering someone
23 when that wasn't true?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You see -- why did you do that to Allister?
89
1 A. I was being vindictive.
2 Q. What did he do to you that would cause you to go to the
3 police and tell them he was a murderer?
4 A. I have no explanation for it.
5 Q. What sort of a fall-out had you, or what sort of a row
6 had you, that influenced you to make up such a story?
7 A. It just came out. I just said it. I never thought of
8 the implications at the time. I just said it.
9 Q. You see, that would make him a very, very unlucky young
10 man, wouldn't it, Mrs Hanvey --
11 A. Uh-huh.
12 Q. -- that he got himself tied up with a young woman who
13 would do such a thing to him?
14 A. Of course.
15 Q. You see, you weren't the only one who mentioned him, of
16 course. Do you know Timothy Jameson?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You see, Timothy Jameson also described Allister
19 behaving in a similar way that night. You are aware of
20 that, aren't you?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. What Timothy said was:
23 "I looked around and I saw Allister Hanvey kick and
24 punch this fellow who was lying on the ground."
25 That's what Timothy Jameson said Allister did. Do
90
1 you know that?
2 A. Yes, I do know that. I also know that Timothy was in
3 another room beside me in the police station on
4 10th May. He was in one room and I was in the other
5 room and the police were going back and forth into each
6 room.
7 Q. So he was really doubly unlucky, Allister, wasn't he,
8 then, that not only did he get himself tied up with you,
9 who would tell such a vindictive lie about him, but that
10 Timothy Jameson did the same? That was very unlucky,
11 wasn't it?
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 Q. Why would Timothy do it?
14 A. Again, the police?
15 Q. Why would Timothy lie about Allister?
16 A. I have no idea.
17 Q. No.
18 Tell me this: did you ever want to join the navy?
19 A. My brother is in the navy. I can remember applying for
20 the army, but not the navy.
21 Q. Well, how did you know him -- is that how you know that
22 to have the condition of asthma would mean it would be
23 difficult to get into the navy.
24 A. I know that it is difficult to get into the army,
25 because I have applied. I had applied when I was
91
1 younger.
2 Q. Well, when Mr Underwood mentioned to you earlier that
3 the police had told the Inquiry that they tried to get
4 you into the navy, you denied that?
5 A. I can't remember that.
6 Q. No memory of it whatsoever?
7 A. No memory of it whatsoever.
8 Q. No memory of sitting an exam to get into the navy?
9 A. That was for the army.
10 Q. Are you sure it wasn't the navy?
11 A. It was for the army. It was in Portadown.
12 Q. Well, when was that?
13 A. A long, long time ago. I don't know.
14 Q. Was it after this incident?
15 A. I don't know.
16 Q. Well, try and help us.
17 A. I know. I'm trying --
18 Q. This incident clearly is something which stands out in
19 your mind and a turning point in your life. Isn't that
20 right?
21 A. It could have been after that, after the incident.
22 Q. How long after?
23 A. I don't know.
24 Q. Was it not with the help of the police that you made
25 an application?
92
1 A. For the army?
2 Q. According to them, the navy, but maybe it was the army?
3 A. I am unsure. I don't know. I don't recall the police
4 helping me get a new job or the police helping me to do
5 that navy thing. No, I don't remember that at all.
6 Q. But you remember sitting the exam for the army?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. But you didn't get it, did you?
9 A. I did. I passed the exam.
10 Q. Why didn't you join the army then?
11 A. Because I have asthma and my fitness levels weren't
12 good, if I can remember right.
13 Q. So you were refused entry to the army because of your
14 asthma?
15 A. I'm not too sure. I can't really -- it's a long time
16 ago.
17 Q. Is it not the truth that senior police helped you in
18 your application for the armed forces, arranged for you
19 to sit the exam?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Because at that time --
22 A. I don't really --
23 Q. -- you were still telling them you were going to give
24 evidence. Isn't that right?
25 A. I made the statement, but I could never go through with
93
1 giving evidence, because it was false.
2 Q. When, Mrs Hanvey, exactly did you seek legal advice
3 about how to deal with your situation?
4 A. I think it was 2000.
5 Q. Yes. Wasn't that in the context of your belief that you
6 might be called to give evidence at the inquest into
7 Robert Hamill?
8 A. I think whenever I moved back up to Portadown, I seek --
9 I seeked advice from a solicitor, which is in 2000,
10 I think.
11 Q. Who was that?
12 A. Who was my solicitor?
13 Q. Yes.
14 A. Richard Monteith.
15 Q. Were you going out with Allister Hanvey at that time?
16 A. I think I was going back out with Allister then, yes.
17 Q. Now, when you saw the DPP in October 1997, at no time
18 during that conversation, as you have been already told,
19 did you tell them that what you had said to the police
20 was untrue.
21 A. That's true.
22 Q. We have various accounts of that meeting from senior DPP
23 officials, seasoned senior counsel and policemen, all
24 who were at that meeting. At no time did you say or
25 give any hint that what you said was untrue.
94
1 A. That's true. I never.
2 Q. Then two years later, in December 1999 or November 1999,
3 you spoke to the coroner who was getting ready to have
4 an inquest then. You remember that?
5 A. What -- yes, I think so, yes.
6 Q. You told him that you were afraid to give evidence.
7 A. Yes, because it was a lie.
8 Q. No, no. No, no. They are two quite separate things,
9 Mrs Hanvey. You told the coroner, did you not, that you
10 were terrified of giving evidence?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. But at no time, I am going to suggest to you, did you
13 tell the coroner in 1999 that what you had said was
14 a lie?
15 A. That's true. I never told anybody.
16 Q. No. So it is only after you get legal advice then from
17 Mr Monteith in 2000 that you start telling people it was
18 a lie?
19 A. But it was a lie.
20 Q. But that's a separate matter again.
21 In terms of the timing of your declaration to
22 anybody that it was a lie, it was after you got legal
23 advice?
24 A. I got legal advice, yes.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Please answer the question. Was the first
95
1 time you told anyone your statement was a lie after you
2 had seen a solicitor?
3 A. Yes.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
5 MR McGRORY: Were you worried about the consequences of then
6 saying that what you had said originally was a lie?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. What did you think those consequences would be?
9 A. To be known as a liar and a vindictive bitch.
10 Q. Of course, you had already told a lie. Isn't that
11 right? You would already have been known as a liar and
12 a vindictive bitch if what you had said on 10th May was
13 untrue.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. So what changed between then and 2000?
16 A. Admitting to myself, admitting to myself of what and who
17 I really was.
18 Q. Is it not the reality, Mrs Hanvey, that the inquest was
19 looming, as far as you knew, and you were going to have
20 to face a witness box for the first time?
21 A. I could not have faced the witness box.
22 Q. But to go through with what you said on 10th May 1997
23 had serious consequences for Mr Hanvey, had it not?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. He is the father of your children. Isn't that right?
96
1 A. That's right.
2 Q. You are separated?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Does he have the kids?
5 A. We share, share the kids, yes.
6 Q. He is a pretty important element in their lives. Isn't
7 that right?
8 A. Uh-huh.
9 Q. He's a good father, isn't he?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Did he leave the kids into school today?
12 A. No.
13 Q. If you were to tell, which I say is the truth, what you
14 said on 10th May 1997, do you understand the
15 consequences for him?
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 Q. What are they?
18 A. Well, if I was to -- he would be imprisoned along with
19 other people.
20 Q. That would have a pretty devastating effect on your
21 children, wouldn't it, Mrs Hanvey?
22 A. It would, but whenever I retracted my statement, I had
23 no children. I had no children.
24 Q. But you do now?
25 A. I do now, yes.
97
1 Q. You see, when you retracted your statement, Mrs Hanvey,
2 you weren't really pinned to the colours, sure you
3 weren't?
4 A. What do you mean "pinned to the colours"?
5 Q. Nobody made you get into a witness box and speak about
6 this on oath?
7 A. But it would have. It would have happened.
8 Q. But they didn't, Mrs Hanvey. Isn't that right?
9 A. I didn't face the witness box, no.
10 Q. You have never had to say what you have said today on
11 oath before, have you?
12 A. No.
13 Q. This is the first time?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. If you said it today what you said on 10th May 1997, you
16 would be really stuck with it, wouldn't you?
17 A. I would be lying.
18 Q. But if you said it in a court of law, which this is not,
19 but if you said it in a court of law, which I suggest
20 you might be forced to do, if you said it today,
21 Mr Hanvey would go to prison?
22 A. That's right.
23 Q. Isn't telling lies today the lesser of two evils?
24 A. No. Telling lies today is the truth. Today is the
25 truth --
98
1 Q. Is that right?
2 A. -- come out.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: 2.15 pm.
4 (1.17 pm)
5 (The luncheon adjournment)
6 (2.15 pm)
7 MR McGRORY: I have no further questions, sir.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Ms Dinsmore?
9 Questions from MS DINSMORE
10 MS DINSMORE: Good afternoon, Mrs Hanvey. My name is
11 Margaret Anne Dinsmore. I appear on behalf of both
12 Eleanor Atkinson and Robbie Atkinson. I just have a few
13 things to ask you arising out of what you have said this
14 morning.
15 Firstly, Mr --
16 A. I can't hear you. Sorry. You are only coming now.
17 Q. Can you hear me now? Will I start all over again?
18 A. Sorry. Yes.
19 Q. Not at all. My name is Margaret Anne Dinsmore. I am
20 representing both Eleanor and Robbie Atkinson.
21 In relation to some matters that were put to you
22 this morning, I just want to clarify a couple of things
23 with you, the first being Mr Underwood referred to the
24 potential that you had purchased a silver jacket with
25 orange stripes and I understand your answer was, "Look,
99
1 I purchased a whole lot of clothes for Mr Hanvey".
2 Am I right in thinking that your evidence was that
3 you didn't recall purchasing a silver jacket?
4 A. That's right.
5 Q. Now, it wasn't suggested to you, but I wonder, could
6 I jolt your memory? Is there any question that you
7 might well have purchased a blue Daniel Poole jacket,
8 a Puffa?
9 A. A Puffa jacket?
10 Q. Do you think you might well have purchased that?
11 A. I had, like, a big Puffa jacket.
12 Q. Because --
13 A. Sorry.
14 Q. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Because the
15 Inquiry have heard --
16 THE CHAIRMAN: It is not clear whether she is saying she
17 bought one or had one herself.
18 MR DINSMORE: One, we know you have a Puffa jacket. I am
19 asking you, do you think you could have bought Allister
20 a Puffa jacket?
21 A. Could have.
22 Q. You could have?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Because, you see -- if you are familiar with the shop
25 Paranoid --
100
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. -- did you know a girl, Linda Wilson, who worked in it?
3 A. What was her name?
4 Q. Linda Wilson.
5 A. Yes, yes.
6 Q. You do know her?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. You maybe don't know who the owner of it was, but if
9 I suggested to you it was a Julian Lyons, would that
10 ring any bells with you?
11 A. That's right, yes.
12 Q. That is right. You see, the Inquiry have evidence
13 before them from both Mr Lyons and Miss Wilson that, in
14 fact, on the Christmas of 1996, you did indeed buy the
15 Puffa jacket, the blue Daniel Poole jacket.
16 Now, does that bring back the jacket any clearer to
17 you.
18 A. It -- it was a Christmas present for Allister. He would
19 have picked it out and I would have paid it off for him.
20 Q. When you say "paid it off for him", I think they call
21 that a lay-by system, that you went in each week with
22 a sum of money.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Would it have been an expensive Christmas present? It
25 has been suggested it was in the region of £150-£175.
101
1 Would that seem right to you?
2 A. Would be the price of those things, yes.
3 Q. That would have been the Christmas of 1996, the
4 Christmas before all this happened?
5 A. It's hard to remember, you know, when I bought clothes
6 for him, but that could be, yes.
7 Q. That could be the case?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Then, as I said to you, I act on behalf of the
10 Atkinsons. In your statement of 10th May you outlined
11 a lot of circumstances which you have now told us today
12 that those things were lies, and that they were not
13 true.
14 Can you just confirm to me, is it true or not that
15 what you said that Allister said, that Mr Atkinson had
16 been very good to him because, on the Sunday morning
17 after the incident in the town centre, he rang him about
18 8.00 am and told him to get rid of the clothes he was
19 wearing the previous night.
20 Now, did Allister tell you that?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Are you sure about that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Where do you think that came from, that it ended up in
25 your statement?
102
1 A. Andrea McKee.
2 Q. Why do you say that?
3 A. Because she -- she was -- she was friendly with the
4 Atkinsons and as well as that she liked to put her oar
5 in and talk about everything and, you know, she was
6 a chatterbox, you know, and she was in with me whenever
7 I made my statement.
8 Q. When you say she liked to put her oar in on everything
9 and she was a chatterbox, would she have been that at
10 the gym as well?
11 A. Oh, yes.
12 Q. Do you ever recall saying the things that were in your
13 statement at the gym, or did those come from other
14 people talking at the gym?
15 A. Other people talking.
16 Q. Was there much talk?
17 A. There was a lot of talk.
18 Q. Was Andrea McKee core to that talk?
19 A. She liked to know what was going on and she was like the
20 centre, but she got information from lots of different
21 people so that she was in the middle of it as well.
22 Q. Now, in that regard -- and I don't propose to go into
23 this in any great detail -- at that time, you were only
24 17 years of age?
25 A. Yes.
103
1 Q. Is it correct to say that you really had quite unhappy
2 home circumstances between your mother and your
3 stepfather?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Isn't it correct that the McKees lived just opposite
6 you, or nearby --
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. -- and that you did, in fact, spend a lot of time with
9 them?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. In fact, you had use of a room in their house?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And they allowed you and Allister to stay over in that
14 house?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Were you sort of a mixed up wee girl in some ways?
17 A. Very mixed up.
18 Q. Would you have been under the influence of Ms McKee?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Do you want to take a moment? Do you want to have
21 a drink of water or anything?
22 A. Sorry.
23 Q. No, I really do not want to make things difficult for
24 you, because I know I am touching on very personal
25 matters that go very deep, but was your level of
104
1 vulnerability to Andrea McKee such that you would have
2 found it very hard not to go along with her suggestions and
3 her bidding?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Could you just answer, because I am afraid the tape
6 can't see a nod?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. In relation to what you told the police and other people
9 initially, when the police first came to your home with
10 your parents there on the night of the 8th -- and that's
11 what we will refer to as the questionnaire -- isn't it
12 correct to say you made no mention of Allister Hanvey or
13 anything of the things that are in your statement then?
14 A. Never mentioned them, no.
15 Q. Haven't you got another aunt by marriage called
16 xxxxxx?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You would have talked to her?
19 A. Not a whole pile, but I would have looked.
20 Q. You didn't talk a lot to her, because, in fact -- and
21 Mr Chairman, you will find it at page [14902] -- what
22 she says is you didn't tell her anything about all of
23 these things that are in your statement except there was
24 a skirmish. Would that seem right?
25 A. Yes.
105
1 Q. So is it correct to say then that all the details in
2 this statement then emerged subsequent to the talking
3 and subsequent to Andrea McKee picking you up at
4 11 o'clock at night at the Chinese and taking you to the
5 police station?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Now, in relation to Mr Atkinson in your statement -- are
8 you okay now? Do you want to compose yourself for
9 a minute? Are you okay?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. All right.
12 Now, in relation to Mr Atkinson in your statement of
13 10th May, you said that Allister had said to you that
14 Mr Atkinson was ringing him every day. Was that true?
15 Did Allister say that to you?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Do you know where that maybe came from?
18 A. Andrea. Andrea.
19 Q. Then there is the question about you, yourself, that
20 night in question. I think you have admitted very
21 openly in your interview you were very drunk, were you
22 not?
23 A. And I had drugs as well.
24 Q. So you were under the influence of both drink and drugs
25 that evening?
106
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Now, in relation to you speaking to Mr Atkinson that
3 evening, can you just tell us what you remember about
4 that?
5 A. I can't remember speaking to or seeing Robert Atkinson.
6 Q. I think your evidence this morning was it could have
7 happened?
8 A. Yes, but I can't remember it.
9 Q. You certainly don't remember the conversation which has
10 been suggested to you, that he had a whole exchange with
11 you in relation to nodding your head and suchlike?
12 A. No.
13 Q. You have no recall of that?
14 A. No.
15 Q. You have no recall of speaking to a Mr Atkinson at the
16 back of the Land Rover?
17 A. No.
18 Q. No. I have to suggest to you that you are quite correct
19 in that. You see, your stepfather, Mr Jim Murray, he
20 suggested in his statement you told him that
21 Robert Atkinson spoke to you at the back -- or you spoke
22 to Robert Atkinson at the back of the Land Rover. Is
23 that correct or incorrect?
24 A. That's incorrect. I can't remember.
25 Q. That's incorrect. In relation to -- why have you
107
1 carried -- the question has been asked obliquely to you
2 today: why have you carried the burden of having told
3 these lies for so long? What do you say to that?
4 A. I don't know why I carried it. I don't know. It's been
5 awful. I didn't know what to do.
6 Q. Did a bit of you try to get on with your life and bury
7 your wrongdoing about making up this statement?
8 A. Yes.
9 MS DINSMORE: Thank you very much.
10 Questions from MR DALY
11 MR DALY: Mrs Hanvey, my name is Daly and I represent your
12 auntie, Andrea McKee.
13 A. Okay.
14 Q. Are you okay to continue?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Now, is it fair to say that the relationship with your
17 aunt and uncle, Michael and Andrea McKee, had been good
18 prior to this?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You had been on good terms with them?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. You were a member of the club?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. You socialised with them?
25 A. Uh-huh.
108
1 Q. You stayed over at their home?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. You travelled to Lanzarote with them?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And you had many conversations with your aunt? She was
6 chatty?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Would it be fair to say that you in some ways regarded
9 her as an older sister?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Could I suggest to you that it was in this role, as
12 an older sister to provide you with some comfort, that
13 she arranged to go to the police station with you when
14 you made your statement in 1997?
15 A. She brought me to the police station, because she --
16 sorry. She was like a Miss Know-it-all. She liked to
17 be in the middle of the conversations and she liked to
18 be in the middle of what I was saying to her, what I had
19 heard and what she heard at the gym. So she brought me
20 because she had a story to tell as well.
21 Q. But it was your interview. Isn't that right?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. You were the one making the statement. It was your
24 statement?
25 A. Yes.
109
1 Q. And this was the person who had previously been kind to
2 you?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Had been loving to you?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Had been like an older sister to you?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Her attendance at the station with you was with the
9 blessing of your parents. Isn't that right?
10 A. They had already arranged that her and Michael would
11 pick me up from work. I didn't have any consultation of
12 it until they picked me up.
13 Q. But as far as you are aware, were your parents content
14 with this arrangement?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Yet, Mrs Hanvey, during the course of this interview and
17 this statement you are saying now that your auntie
18 forced your hand and forced you to say certain things?
19 A. Whenever I spoke to my auntie about things that I had
20 heard on the town, just what I had heard, she brought
21 them up in the police station and said, you know, "Tell
22 them this. Tell them that. Tell them what you told me
23 earlier".
24 Q. You see, you are the only one that says that,
25 Mrs Hanvey. You are the only one that says that your
110
1 auntie suggested these things to you during the course
2 of your interview.
3 Is there a conspiracy against you, Mrs Hanvey?
4 A. What does that mean?
5 Q. Are your uncle and auntie, your parents and the
6 police -- were they in a conspiracy of poison against
7 you?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Trying to stitch you up in some way?
10 A. No. They all -- they all talked about it and because
11 I had heard things that went on that night, they all
12 just talked about it and talked about it freely --
13 Q. But --
14 A. -- and heard other -- it is all hearsay. All they
15 talked about was hearsay. I never seen anything happen.
16 I never seen no fighting.
17 Q. But it was your statement. You were saying in your
18 statement what you had seen.
19 A. I -- yes, I signed this. I said I seen it.
20 Q. In your more recent statement you say that Mrs McKee put
21 certain things into your original statement. Why would
22 she have done that?
23 A. Because she didn't like Allister and she is vindictive
24 as well.
25 Q. Well, if we can just look at page [80187], please, and
111
1 just highlight paragraph 21 at the bottom, this is your
2 recent statement, Mrs Hanvey --
3 A. Right.
4 Q. -- where you say:
5 "In my statement I said, 'I remember
6 Robbie Atkinson's name coming up and Allister said that
7 Robbie Atkinson had been very good to him because on the
8 Sunday morning after the incident in the town centre he
9 rang him about 8.00 am and told him to get rid of the
10 clothes he was wearing the previous night'. I do not
11 know where this came from. I think that has come from
12 my auntie, Andrea McKee."
13 Why would Andrea McKee have said this?
14 A. I have no idea why she said it.
15 Q. No idea at all?
16 A. She -- I don't know why she said it.
17 Q. Was it possible that she didn't say it?
18 A. No. She did say it.
19 Q. Is it at all possible that it was the truth?
20 A. That Andrea said it? Andrea had said it.
21 Q. Is it at all possible that:
22 "I remember Robbie Atkinson's name coming up and
23 Allister said that Robbie Atkinson had been very good to
24 him because on the Sunday morning after the incident in
25 the town centre he rang him about 8.00 am and told him
112
1 to get rid of the clothes he was wearing the previous
2 night."
3 That was in your original statement. Is it possible
4 that that was the truth?
5 A. I don't know, because I didn't say it. It was Andrea
6 who told me to say -- who told me it.
7 Q. And yet, you have absolutely no reason as to why she
8 would have told you to say that?
9 A. She was in the room at interview with me when it was
10 said.
11 Q. Are you aware that your auntie was subsequently
12 prosecuted in court and pleaded guilty to perverting the
13 course of justice in relation to this matter?
14 A. I heard something about it, but I don't know a lot about
15 it.
16 Q. There could not possibly have been anything in it for
17 your auntie to put these words into your mouth or into
18 your statement. There couldn't possibly have been
19 anything in it for your auntie. Isn't that right?
20 A. I don't know where she got the information. I don't
21 know.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: That's not quite the question. Can
23 I rephrase it?
24 Can you see what Andrea had to gain by putting these
25 words into your mouth and getting them in your
113
1 statement?
2 A. No. She had nothing to gain.
3 MR DALY: The person spreading poison, Mrs Hanvey, is you.
4 You are spreading poison about other people and about
5 people that have shown you nothing but love and
6 affection.
7 A. That's not true.
8 Q. You are spreading poison about police. You are
9 spreading poison about your parents, and you are
10 spreading poison about your uncle and aunt.
11 A. I know what happened that night and I know what Andrea
12 was like. She was the gossip. She was excited about
13 information. She was the one who brought me to the
14 police station. She was the one who met police in
15 a cemetery at dark time. It's -- I was just -- I just
16 was there and went along with things.
17 Q. And she was one of two people in this entire matter
18 convicted in court in relation to this?
19 A. I don't know. I don't really know anything about what
20 she was convicted of or what was said. I don't know.
21 Q. You said that you did know what happened and I suggest
22 to you, Mrs Hanvey, you did know and you did see what
23 happened on this fateful night and an accurate account
24 of that is the account you gave in your original
25 statement and to the DPP in 1997.
114
1 A. No.
2 Q. That was what actually happened.
3 A. No. That's untrue.
4 Q. Since that time, since you gave that honest and accurate
5 account on those two occasions, in the last 12 years,
6 you have been backtracking, you have been lying, and you
7 have been deceitful to try to back away at every turn
8 from your honesty in 1997.
9 A. I never seen nobody hit or kick or fight on the night in
10 question.
11 Q. Why don't you just tell the truth about this?
12 A. That is the truth.
13 Q. Think about it again. Why don't you tell the truth
14 today about it?
15 A. I didn't see anybody kick, punch or anything. I have
16 had to live with my lies until the day I die.
17 Q. You, in 1997, had two jobs. Isn't that right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. You were working. You were working in a travel agency
20 and you were working in a restaurant.
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. You knew how to deal with the public. You knew how to
23 deal with customers. Isn't that right?
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. Were you a sales agent in the travel agency?
115
1 A. No.
2 Q. What did you do?
3 A. I was a trainee, a trainee.
4 Q. A trainee sales agent. Is that right?
5 A. Trainee, yes, yes.
6 Q. Were you at a desk?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Dealing with the public?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. In the restaurant, were you a waitress?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. You knew, therefore, how to deal with situations, how to
13 deal with people, how to handle yourself in public?
14 A. Uh-huh.
15 Q. Had you wanted to, you could have gone back to speak to
16 the police. You could have spoken to the coroner when
17 he spoke to you on the telephone, or you could have
18 spoken to other representatives to tell them that you
19 had lied in 1997. Couldn't you have done that?
20 A. I could have did that, but I never did.
21 Q. On numerous occasions you had the opportunity to do
22 that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Why not do it?
25 A. As I said, I don't know why I never told the truth.
116
1 MR DALY: Thank you.
2 Questions from DR McGLEENAN
3 DR McGLEENAN: Mr Chairman, my name is McGleenan and
4 I appear for Mrs Hanvey today.
5 Mrs Hanvey, can you see me?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You gave two accounts to police about the events on the
8 night in question. You have been shown today
9 a statement which you made on 10th May 1997 --
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. -- but you mentioned another account, which was on
12 8th May --
13 A. Uh-huh.
14 Q. -- when you also met with Constable McAteer. Do you
15 recall that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Perhaps we could look at the document. It is at
18 [70900].
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. It is a document headed "Questionnaire". Perhaps we
21 could highlight the bottom half of it, please. This
22 document records you telling Mr McAteer your name, your
23 job as a trainee travel agent. The questionnaire is
24 completed at 8 o'clock on 8th May. It states:
25 "You have been identified as being present at
117
1 Market Street."
2 You are asked where you were coming from, "At or
3 around the time of a serious assault."
4 You say:
5 "Coming from the Coach in Banbridge," and you
6 identify a number of people who were with you.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Do you tell the Inquiry today that all of that is
9 accurate and truthful?
10 A. Yes, yes.
11 Q. If we can go over the page [70901] and highlight the top
12 half of that page, please, again there is a series of
13 what appear to be questions and answers. You say,
14 I believe, if I read this right:
15 "Got off Coach bus and walked up town. Saw police
16 Land Rover at the Halifax. Walked up to the
17 Mandarin House. Heard shouting coming from town centre
18 and saw two persons lying in the road at junction of
19 Thomas Street/Market Street."
20 Is that accurate?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Then on 8th May you were asked:
23 "Did you see an assault in Market Street? If so,
24 give details."
25 Your answer was, "No". Is that accurate?
118
1 A. "No", yes.
2 Q. Do you say that's a true account today?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Now, 48 hours later, you gave another statement, as you
5 know, to police on 10th May?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. I want to ask you about the circumstances between that
8 account and the later account?
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. Now, on 8th May when you gave this account to
11 Constable McAteer, were you under any pressure at the
12 time from him?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Was there anyone else with you at the time?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Was anything being suggested to you in terms of names?
17 A. No. I don't think so, no.
18 Q. Would you say to the Inquiry this was a voluntary
19 account on your part?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. On the following day, on the day which would be 9th May,
22 you were at work. Is that right?
23 A. That's right, I think from this, yes.
24 Q. Do you recall? It appears from other documents we have
25 seen, and it has been suggested to the Inquiry, that at
119
1 some point between the 8th and the 10th you were
2 overheard saying other things in the Tae Kwon Do club.
3 Have you heard that before?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. It has been said you were overheard by a policeman who
6 was a member of the club. Do you recall that?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. It is suggested that the police officer's name was
9 David McCaw. Do you know that man?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Do you ever recall speaking openly and audibly about the
12 events on the night of 26th and 27th April? Do you
13 recall speaking openly about that in front of someone
14 who may have been a police officer in the Tae Kwon Do
15 club?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Can I ask for another document, please, at [22670]?
18 A. Okay.
19 Q. That's a handwritten document. Can you see it?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Have you seen that before?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Have you been able to read it?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Again, it is indicated on the face of the document --
120
1 perhaps we can just highlight the top of the front
2 page of it [22670]. It is a journal entry dated
3 27th November 2000 regarding interview with David McCaw,
4 ex-RUC Reserve. This appears to be a note of interview
5 with that police officer.
6 Now, you have been asked by Mr Daly about
7 information that might have been given by Andrea McKee
8 in relation to Robbie Atkinson making a phone call.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. If we can go to [22672] --
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. -- and if we can -- it is difficult to navigate this.
13 About halfway down the page, if we can highlight the
14 centre section, you will see the record of this
15 interview of Mr McCaw, and I am going to draw your
16 attention to five lines down there is a sentence
17 beginning:
18 "I asked him ..."
19 Do you see that if you look at the document?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. If you read down through that:
22 "I asked him to think again about what initiated the
23 conversation between Andrea and himself. Mr McCaw said
24 he couldn't remember. I asked him to think about his
25 conversation with Andrea McKee and to recollect what she
121
1 told him at that time. Mr McCaw said he remembered
2 Andrea McKee talking to him in the office and he
3 remembers being told about Robert Atkinson ringing
4 Allister Hanvey telling him to burn his clothes, but he
5 cannot remember what else was said. He said that
6 Andrea McKee may have told him something else, but he
7 couldn't remember. He does recall going to Portadown
8 station after it to speak to the D Inspector."
9 It is difficult to be sure, but this appears to have
10 happened before you were taken by Andrea McKee for the
11 second interview?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Were you aware that Andrea McKee had engaged with this
14 police officer and told him these things?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Did she tell you that on the way to the police station
17 whenever you were going to give your statement?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Over the page at [22672], if we could have that, you
20 will see that there is a reference -- again, if we can
21 highlight the centre section -- if you can see this,
22 I am going to try to read this to you.
23 A. Okay.
24 Q. "Mr McCaw remembered going with Andrea McKee to see the
25 D Inspector and, he thinks, Johnny McAteer later that
122
1 night. He states that it was late at night but cannot
2 recall how this was arranged. He states that he doesn't
3 remember where he picked up Andrea McKee to go to the
4 meeting which he said was up at [blank] near the
5 graveyard."
6 Did Andrea McKee tell you before she took you to the
7 police interview that she had met with Johnny McAteer
8 and Mr McCaw and somebody else at a graveyard?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Now, Mrs Hanvey, one of the lines of questioning and
11 argument that has been put is that your statement on
12 10th May came about because Mr McCaw overheard you
13 talking in the gym. Are you aware of that?
14 A. Yes, yes.
15 Q. Did Ms McKee ever make it clear she had been talking to
16 Mr McCaw and had arranged a late-night meeting in
17 a graveyard the day before your police statement?
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Near a graveyard. There seems to be some
19 sinister connotation which is built into meeting at
20 a graveyard, but it is quite irrelevant. But it was
21 near the graveyard.
22 DR McGLEENAN: Thank you, Chairman.
23 Turning to the day of the 10th, which may have been
24 the day after this meeting near the graveyard, is it the
25 case you were at your day job during the day, at Going
123
1 Places?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Did you work a full shift at Going Places that day?
4 A. It would be 9.00 to 5.00.
5 Q. Did you then go on to work in the Chinese restaurant?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. What hours did you work there?
8 A. Probably from 5.00 until 11.00. It was a weekday.
9 Q. During the course of that day, were you made aware that
10 arrangements were being made to take you to the police
11 station?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Is it right that you first knew about it whenever
14 Andrea McKee arrived to take you there at 11.00 pm that
15 night?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Did you have any opportunity to go home, speak to your
18 mother, change your clothes?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Did you have an opportunity to rest before the
21 interview?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Have a meal?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Did you believe that you were going there because you
124
1 had to go there or were you volunteering to go to that
2 police interview?
3 A. I had to go.
4 Q. What gave you that impression?
5 A. Because Andrea had said to me that I have to go to the
6 police, that the police wanted to speak to me.
7 Q. On the way there, is it your evidence to the Inquiry
8 that nothing was revealed about these earlier
9 discussions with Mr McCaw or the meeting?
10 A. No.
11 Q. It would appear you arrived at the police station some
12 time after 11.00 pm that night. Is that right? 11.30
13 or so?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. How long do you think, if you can recall, you spent
16 being interviewed that night?
17 A. I don't know how long it was. I have no idea.
18 Q. Was it daylight when you left the following morning?
19 A. It was dark.
20 Q. Were you interviewed constantly during your time in the
21 police station or did you have any breaks or rest
22 periods?
23 A. I was just in the room all the time.
24 Q. Yes. Was Andrea McKee with you all the time?
25 A. Yes.
125
1 Q. Now, in relation to the contents of the statement which
2 you made and signed on 10th May, from your evidence to
3 the Inquiry today it would seem that you accept there is
4 a core of truth in that statement. Is that right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Would that core of truth be the content of your 8th May
7 questionnaire response?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You still accept that to this day. Is that right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. In addition to that, you have told the Inquiry that the
12 other material came either from police suggestions -- is
13 that right?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And that refers to the names that were put to you. Is
16 that correct?
17 A. Uh-huh, yes.
18 Q. It came from you repeating gossip that you had heard in
19 the town. Is that right?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. The fourth component, if I understand your evidence, is
22 information from Andrea McKee. Is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Are you telling the Inquiry that she made positive
25 contributions in the course of that interview?
126
1 A. Uh-huh, yes.
2 Q. She gave information additional to what you were giving
3 to the police officers?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Now, as well as that, I just want you to reflect on the
6 atmosphere and the relationship between you and
7 Andrea McKee at the time.
8 Is it the case that you had repeated information to
9 her in the Tae Kwon Do club which was gossip and things
10 that you had heard in the town and you had repeated it
11 to her as if it was fact that you knew?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. When you got to the police interview, is it the case
14 that she was raising some of those things which you had
15 repeated to her and that all you could do was confirm
16 what she was saying. Is that the case?
17 A. Yes.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Daly (sic), she is really, you know, your
19 witness. It is perhaps better to avoid leading her.
20 All the last half a dozen or so questions have been just
21 that.
22 DR McGLEENAN: I apologise, Chairman. It is just that the
23 witness is upset.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: It affects the value of her answers, you see.
25 DR McGLEENAN: If you can compose yourself for a moment,
127
1 Mrs Hanvey. I want you to describe, if you can, the
2 component of information -- how the information came
3 from Andrea McKee to the police in the course of that
4 interview. Describe what was happening.
5 A. When the police was saying that I had seen it and I was
6 saying that I hadn't seen it, then she was maybe saying,
7 "You told me this and that", and she was putting her oar
8 in and it was easier for me just to say, "Yes, it all
9 happened", than to say -- to contradict her or say to
10 her "No. It was just, you know, all hearsay".
11 DR McGLEENAN: Thank you. I have nothing further.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Underwood.
13 Further questions from MR UNDERWOOD
14 MR UNDERWOOD: Mrs Hanvey, there are just a couple of things
15 I would like to ask you about that I hope will not be
16 too stressful. The first is the document we have looked
17 at a moment ago. It is at page [70901]. You were asked
18 about the first half of this. This is the
19 questionnaire, if you remember, that was taken on
20 8th May.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Can we look at the bottom half of it and let's highlight
23 that?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. At the top of it, it has a description about what you
128
1 were wearing and then a visible description of you.
2 Then it deals with the completing officer's details. It
3 sets out that that's John McAteer, Detective Constable.
4 It says there is no statement recorded. Then it goes on
5 about the party at the house.
6 What it seems to have there is people who were
7 present according to you:
8 "Tracy McAlpine ..."
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. "... Pauline Newell, Kelly Lavery, Allister Hanvey."
11 Then somebody we are calling P46:
12 "'Fonzy', Dennis [somebody] and Ian Carville."
13 Did you tell Mr McAteer those things?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. So you told him on 8th May, then, that Allister Hanvey
16 was at the party in the house?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Do you know he has lied about that since?
19 A. Who?
20 Q. Allister.
21 A. Allister?
22 Q. Do you know he told us on oath he wasn't there?
23 A. No. I didn't know that.
24 Q. Right. Thank you.
25 The other matter I want to ask you about is the
129
1 McKees. You were close to Andrea you told us. Is that
2 right? Is this right, too, that, again, as you were
3 asked it, you had a room that you were able to use at
4 the McKees and you and Allister used to stay there from
5 time to time?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Were you able to stay from time to time with Allister at
8 his parents' house?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did the McKees know that?
11 A. Yes.
12 MR UNDERWOOD: Okay. Thank you very much. Those are the
13 only questions I have. Thank you.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. You are free now to go.
15 A. Thank you.
16 (The witness withdrew)
17 MR UNDERWOOD: Sir, I dare say we need to reconfigure the
18 technology for ten minutes.
19 (3.10 pm)
20 (A short break)
21 (3.20 pm)
22 MR UNDERWOOD: Sir, I am proposing to take the remainder of
23 the day introducing some of the next session of
24 witnesses. They really break into two components: those
25 dealing with the murder investigation; and DPP's
130
1 witnesses. What I am going to do for the next half
2 an hour or so, if I may, is to deal with the murder
3 investigation side of it.
4 Before I do that, may I point out that I am now ably
5 assisted by Ms Yates instead of Miss Anderson, who, as
6 I hope everybody now knows, has had a baby. Ms Yates
7 will be with us for the remainder of the evidence at
8 least.
9 The obvious difficulty that the Panel faces in
10 dealing with the murder investigation is the very
11 regrettable death of Mr McBurney, who, as a result,
12 obviously is going to be unable to explain the basis
13 upon which a number of his decisions were taken.
14 What I am going to do as a very poor second best is
15 to play the transcript of the interview that the Inquiry
16 held with him. That's a tape that runs to six and
17 a half hours or so elapsed time, but what it does do is
18 enable you to hear him in his own voice deal with very
19 many of the issues that were very perceptively put to
20 him by the interviewing team as part of the
21 consideration for putting together a witness statement
22 for him. I hope that's going to be rather a lot better
23 than merely looking at a transcript of it, or, indeed,
24 just looking at his witness statement.
25 I am hoping we are going to be able to get that
131
1 played in the bulk tomorrow, and then, unhappily, there
2 will have to be a break while we interpose some
3 witnesses, but certainly that it is all played over the
4 course of this week.
5 What we will do while that's being played is have on
6 the screen simultaneously the transcript of it, because,
7 of course, it was not particularly sophisticated
8 recording equipment and it is not an entirely perfect
9 recording, but the transcription is reliable, so I hope,
10 with the aid of the transcription, it will be possible
11 to follow the whole thing.
12 There is clearly an issue about Mr McBurney. Now
13 that his investigative decisions can be viewed in the
14 round and viewed with the aid of hindsight that we have,
15 it could be argued, and I am not suggesting for the
16 moment that I am arguing it, that they were designed to
17 protect Robert Atkinson. It is right to be fair and
18 say, on the other hand, that there is quite a lot to be
19 said for Mr McBurney not doing that.
20 Firstly, he made absolutely no secret of the
21 allegation that Mr Atkinson had tipped off
22 Allister Hanvey. He told the ICPC. He told the DPP and
23 he told the chief constable, as it now transpires,
24 within days of Tracey Clarke making that allegation.
25 Complaints and Discipline officers, who, of course,
132
1 would eventually be seized of that matter, were part of
2 the murder investigation team, or, rather, part of the
3 investigation team of the neglect complaint. Of course,
4 they knew of the allegation themselves.
5 It is also fair to say that insofar as the ICPC,
6 Complaints and Discipline or even the DPP office fell
7 down at any point in relation to the investigation,
8 that, of course, you might reasonably say was their
9 responsibility and not his. We are unable to unpick,
10 I suspect, what intimate dealings there may have been
11 between, for example, Mr Murnaghan and Mr McBurney which
12 might have led to the ICPC keeping out of this.
13 It is also fair to say, contrary perhaps to what
14 Miss Clarke told you today, that Mr McBurney plainly
15 took steps to reassure her as a witness and to keep her
16 onside by, as we will see, attempting to assist her get
17 jobs out of the area and so forth
18 THE CHAIRMAN: That's spoken to as well by P69, isn't it?
19 MR UNDERWOOD: It is certainly spoken to by P39.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: P39.
21 MR UNDERWOOD: It is only fair to say that all the
22 advantages that hindsight can give us, which may tend to
23 suggest that Mr McBurney was up to something, could just
24 be a false, sinister gloss and a false, sinister gloss
25 on what was, in fact, a string of unremarkable decisions
133
1 when looked at one by one. There is a stark issue about
2 it, and it is only right I point out at this stage where
3 that issue might take you.
4 With that cautionary note, what I want to do is turn
5 to what could be said against Mr McBurney, so that, when
6 you hear his transcript, you can consider in the light
7 of it what his answers are.
8 The starting point is, as we now know, the
9 allegation of the tip-off was treated as part of the
10 neglect investigation. That was by no means inevitable.
11 We are beginning to hear evidence from senior police
12 officers that they would have expected that the
13 allegation of the tip-off was in essence an allegation
14 that Mr Atkinson was an accessory to the murder, and
15 that, therefore, it ought to have been dealt with as
16 a component of the murder investigation whether or not
17 it was sent up to the DPP in the same file. But it may
18 appear odd that it was dealt with as part of the
19 neglect. All the more so, it may be said, because the
20 author of the neglect complaint, which is, of course,
21 Rosemary Nelson on behalf of the Hamill family, was
22 never told that neglect complaint was enlarged to cover
23 this tip-off and, indeed, was never told there was such
24 a tip-off.
25 It may be thought that by separating the tip-off
134
1 allegation from the murder investigation, it became
2 possible for the tip-off allegation to be downplayed,
3 when, in fact, the murder investigation was a matter of
4 quite high profile, and that, therefore, the degree of
5 supervision that that high profile investigation might
6 receive was then shifted off the tip-off.
7 The next stage in what could be a criticism of
8 Mr McBurney then turns to the quality of the search of
9 Allister Hanvey's home on 10th May. Clearly, the reason
10 why that search was conducted and Mr Hanvey was arrested
11 was the witness statement made by Tracey Clarke, albeit
12 there was a similar statement from Timothy Jameson at
13 the same time. Of course, Tracey Clarke's statement in
14 respect of Allister Hanvey contained the two discrete
15 allegations: firstly, that he was party to the kicking;
16 and, secondly, that he was party to the tip-off to
17 destroy his clothes.
18 Now we know, because it makes sense, and also
19 because we have seen the records of the other searches,
20 that naturally enough, if you are searching somebody's
21 home for clothing, let alone if you were searching
22 somebody's home for clothing when there is an allegation
23 that they might have destroyed it, you would be on the
24 look-out for all sorts of things. You might be on the
25 look-out for more than one set of clothes for a start.
135
1 You might be on the look-out for burnt clothes and the
2 like.
3 Remarkably, we know this search, and only this
4 search, was truncated, one set of clothes being found.
5 You have already heard from the searchers and from the
6 Detective Constable, DC McAteer, who was with them.
7 DC McAteer says he was there to effect the arrest. The
8 searchers say he was there to tell them what to take or
9 what not to take. There is no credible explanation,
10 I would respectfully suggest, yet before you about why
11 it is they stopped short.
12 Again, this is one of those things that it may well
13 be that Mr McBurney could properly say about, "Not me.
14 I didn't conduct the search. I didn't direct the
15 search". Mr Irwin directed the search. Of course, we
16 will hear from Mr Irwin and that's one of the matters we
17 will hear about.
18 Then we come to the ICPC. It is not yet clear how
19 it was the ICPC became involved at all. Again, we will
20 hear some more evidence about that in this session.
21 There are two contenders for this: the first is that the
22 Chief Constable alerted by the importance of this murder
23 investigation self-referred the neglect complaint to the
24 ICPC; the second is, of course, the Rosemary Nelson
25 complaint.
136
1 Is looks so far as if both of those things, in fact,
2 obtained, but the self-referral came up first. It was
3 simply overtaken by the complaint.
4 It seems from the evidence we have heard so far that
5 the ICPC, although it did not have power to self-refer,
6 could have raised the tip-off allegation to the chief
7 constable or one of his officers and that the chief
8 constable or a senior officer would then have referred
9 it under the order, and, had they done so, that the ICPC
10 would then have supervised.
11 You are going to hear from ACC Hall to the effect
12 that he very firmly brought the matter to the attention
13 of Mr Murnaghan of the ICPC and was completely satisfied
14 that Mr Murnaghan would, in fact, have supervised. We
15 know it didn't happen. We don't know why. We don't
16 have Mr Murnaghan because he, too, sadly, has died.
17 It is possible, and I can put it no more than that,
18 that he raised the matter with Mr McBurney, and between
19 the two of them there was an agreement it would not be
20 supervised. How this comes out of the evidence we have
21 yet to see, because we will press ACC Hall and others
22 about it as much as possible, but at this stage it is
23 an open question.
24 Then one comes to the Complaints and Discipline
25 officers. Again, you have heard one of those already.
137
1 Their sole purpose, so far as one can tell, in being
2 involved in the neglect complaint was to ensure that,
3 once the pure criminal side of it had been dealt with
4 and it became a pure disciplinary matter, that nothing
5 that could have happened in the criminal side could
6 prejudice the use of evidence, or indeed prejudice
7 anyone, in the pure disciplinary side of it.
8 At the absolute least, that would have entailed the
9 service of the Form 17(3) caution prior to Mr Atkinson
10 being interviewed about the tip-off allegation.
11 Complaints and Discipline did not even manage that. In
12 fact, presently on the evidence it is difficult to see
13 what on earth was the purpose of the Complaints and
14 Discipline involvement in this. They kept so much of
15 a back seat that they were not even in view of the
16 wind-screen.
17 Again, the question must arise: why is that? Were
18 they just incompetent? Was there some direction -- was
19 there an agreement they were going to keep back?
20 What is clear is, once Mr Atkinson was eventually
21 taxed with the tip-off allegation in September 1997,
22 without the benefit of a Form 17(3) being served on him
23 for this, that presumably would have made inadmissible
24 anything he said under that interview in any subsequent
25 disciplinary proceedings. It is difficult to imagine
138
1 how that position could have come about.
2 You will also see that the chief constable appears
3 to have had a fairly robust approach to what he regarded
4 as errant officers. You will see a document that deals
5 with a conversation between him and the
6 Permanent Secretary of the relevant department in which
7 they discussed the tip-off against Mr Atkinson and
8 discussed in particular the want of admissible evidence
9 against Mr Atkinson of any wrongdoing, in which the
10 chief constable made it plain that he had sacked
11 officers for less and simply taken the financial
12 consequences, because he would rather have to pay
13 compensation than have a bent officer on his force.
14 Yet it appears that, on 12th May 1997, he was told
15 of the allegation. We get that from ACC Hall, who has
16 managed to retrieve a journal entry showing the
17 conversation specifically about this between him and the
18 chief constable, and another point on that: the question
19 of suspension obviously would have struck people's minds
20 in May 1997, when this tip-off allegation was made.
21 Naturally, service of the Form 17(3) and suspension
22 are matters which could easily have prejudiced
23 an investigation. One can easily have imagine why, if
24 you are looking at an officer, you might not want to tip
25 him off about matters until you have something of a case
139
1 about him. It is entirely credible that some senior
2 officers would not have suspended and would not have
3 served a Form 17(3) until they had collected evidence
4 about Mr Atkinson.
5 As far as one can tell, there was not even
6 consideration of suspending Mr Atkinson, certainly down
7 to the point when he was interviewed in September and
8 October 1997. Again, that's something that Mr McBurney
9 could usefully have been asked about.
10 Coming back then to the way in which the allegation
11 was treated as a matter of record, I said that, on the
12 evidence, senior officers would have expected the
13 tip-off allegation to form part of the murder rather
14 than the neglect, irrespective of how many files went up
15 to the DPP.
16 Again, one needs to consider this: that, when the
17 DPP did eventually get a murder file, it made it clear
18 that there would be a further file dealing with the
19 Atkinson allegation, and yet the DPP was asked to get on
20 and consider the murder, absent that. Indeed, they did.
21 That's precisely what happened. By the time the crime
22 file -- the murder crime file had been given to the DPP,
23 Mr Atkinson had not even been interviewed about the
24 tip-off allegation.
25 You may wonder whether the failure to interview him
140
1 by then was a deliberate decision made so as to put the
2 DPP in the difficult position of having to make a murder
3 or set a murder prosecutorial decision in the absence of
4 knowing about what was going on with Mr Atkinson.
5 Again, in relation to the formulation of a case
6 against Mr Atkinson, there was a remarkable change of
7 gear about obtaining the telephone records. It was
8 regarded as a matter of the greatest urgency to get the
9 records to see whether he had, in fact, made a telephone
10 call on 27th April to the Hanvey household, and as soon
11 as the tip-off allegation was even known about, on
12 9th May, before Tracey Clarke even signed off her
13 statement, the request went out for the telephone calls'
14 records. The best we can do is identify a date of
15 16th May, by which time they came in.
16 It was done with such urgency as to be done in
17 manuscript before the witness statement was taken and
18 was responded to very quickly, 16th May. Nothing,
19 absolutely nothing, was then done until 9th September,
20 when Mr Atkinson was rather laconically interviewed
21 about it, and that despite the fact, of course, that
22 those records did, to this extent, corroborate the
23 allegation, in that they showed there was a telephone
24 call at 8.37 or so from the Atkinson household to the
25 Hanvey household.
141
1 Then you have DI Irwin taking what I continually
2 refer to as a "false alibi statement" -- that's not
3 strictly the proper use of the word "alibi",
4 I suspect -- from Andrea McKee. It is very difficult to
5 know whether, in October 1997, Andrea McKee might have
6 broken down, had Michael Irwin said to her, "Look, you
7 are telling me a pack of lies, because when you brought
8 your niece in and you sat there in the interview, you
9 didn't lift a finger when she said, 'That phone call was
10 made by Robbie Atkinson to Hanvey, not by you or your
11 husband'."
12 It is one of those inextricable links in this
13 Inquiry that is very difficult to disentangle.
14 Presumably at some point you are going to have to make
15 decisions about whether Tracey Clarke is or was telling
16 the truth in her witness statement in the first place or
17 whether Andrea McKee was the author of all that, but
18 even taking what Mrs Hanvey, as she now is, says at face
19 value, that it was Andrea McKee who made the tip-off
20 allegation to the police in May 1997, then it is even
21 more extraordinary that DI Irwin, who had received that
22 tip-off allegation from her at the infamous near
23 graveyard meeting, should then have taken what, in
24 effect, was the opposite statement from her in
25 October 1997.
142
1 Again, that's a matter that Mr Irwin is going to
2 have to deal with. As I understand it, he is
3 essentially going to be saying, "I was only following
4 orders from Mr McBurney". Whether or not that's
5 a sufficient answer is one question, but if it is
6 an answer which you believe, then, of course, it raises
7 the question: what was Mr McBurney doing?
8 There is then the neglect file that does eventually
9 get to the DPP about the tip-off. May I take you to
10 that? It is at page [09079] in its relevant part.
11 If we pick it up at the bottom, paragraph 124:
12 "In addition to the Hamill complaint of inactivity
13 is an allegation based on hearsay and contained in the
14 statement of Witness A."
15 He then sets out the passage in the statement. If
16 we go over the page to [09080], he perfectly fairly sets
17 it out. If we then look at paragraph 125, what
18 Mr McBurney said is:
19 "This aspect of Witness A's statement cannot be
20 taken lightly and in many respects has a ring of truth
21 to it. Consequently, this complaint in its entirety was
22 taken seriously and every effort was made to prove or
23 disprove its authenticity."
24 This is not holy writ, and I don't propose to invite
25 to you construe it as if every word was, as it were, in
143
1 stone, but the impression being given there, that, "this
2 complaint in its entirety was taken seriously and every
3 effort was made to prove or disprove its authenticity",
4 is woefully misleading. No effort whatever was taken to
5 prove or disprove its authenticity so far as one can
6 tell.
7 As I say, apart from the telephone records being
8 sought, and they were sought before that witness
9 statement was made, nothing was done by way of
10 interviewing Atkinson for four months. Tracey Clarke
11 was never re-interviewed about the clothing, etc. All
12 manner of steps that we now know were capable of being
13 taken and were, in fact, taken by DCI K and his team in
14 2001 were manifestly available in 1997, but were not
15 taken. This, as I understand it, was drafted by
16 DI Irwin, I should say, so, again, that's something he
17 might be usefully asked about.
18 If we then go to paragraph 126:
19 "It was established at an early stage of the
20 investigation that Allister Hanvey was in the vicinity
21 of Market Street during the confrontation in question,
22 although he was not recorded as a suspect. He was
23 interviewed by police on 7 May 1997 in which a witness
24 statement was recorded. Nothing of an evidential nature
25 was gleaned, but he did outline what he was wearing on
144
1 the date in question."
2 Now, I don't want to make a great point of this, but
3 the impression that gives is he told the truth in his
4 statement of 7th May about what he was wearing on the
5 night in question. That then leads neatly into the way
6 this unravels. If we go to paragraph 127 and 128:
7 "127. On 10th May 1997, Allister Hanvey was
8 arrested and conveyed to Lurgan Station. During
9 interview he denied involvement in the incident and also
10 denied wearing clothes as alleged by Jonathan Wright."
11 There is a reference:
12 "A search of his house on this date recovered
13 clothing as previously outlined in his witness
14 statement."
15 Well, absolutely accurate, but, of course,
16 self-fulfilling. What it doesn't say is, "All we
17 bothered searching for was what he told us he was
18 wearing on the night and we didn't bother searching for
19 anything else."
20 Then:
21 "On 11th May 1997, Thomas Mervyn Hanvey, an uncle of
22 Allister Hanvey, was interviewed by police."
23 It gives the reference:
24 "His statement incorporates the fact that
25 Allister Hanvey had arrived in the early hours of the
145
1 morning of 10th May and stayed the remainder of the
2 night."
3 Now, what that doesn't say is what we have just
4 heard from Mrs Hanvey; that on the contrary she had told
5 police on 8th May that Hanvey was at the party. The
6 police were always in possession of the information, but
7 that was a false alibi. This doesn't mention that.
8 There was no step taken to chase up the false alibi. We
9 also now know, because of the efforts by DCI K in 2000
10 and 2001, that Hanvey was at that party until 5 o'clock
11 or 6 o'clock in the morning, because when DCI K
12 administered a further set of questionnaires to
13 party-goers, that revealed two or three people who said
14 they were with him and left with him at 5 o'clock or
15 6 o'clock in the morning and went to a cash point.
16 Then what DCI K did was go and check the cash point
17 records and find out that Hanvey had taken -- I can't
18 remember what it was; £10 or so -- out of a cash point
19 in the middle of town at 6 o'clock or so that morning.
20 So a false alibi, or at least the information before
21 you, is unequivocally to the effect that was a false
22 alibi, and the police either had that information in the
23 shape of Tracey Clarke's QPF of 8th May or could and
24 should have had that information in the shape of what
25 DCI K uncovered in 2000 or 2001. To say that every
146
1 effort had been taken to prove or disprove what
2 Tracey Clarke had said is, you may think, very
3 misleading.
4 If we go over the page, [09081], paragraph 131:
5 "However, Jonathan Wright's description of clothing
6 was an aspect that caused serious concern. It was
7 essential to eliminate or prove to the best of our
8 ability that the clothing either did or did not exist in
9 order to either corroborate Jonathan Wright's and
10 possibly Witness A's allegation. Although a crucial
11 issue and imperative from the point of view of the
12 overall allegation, the truth could not be established."
13 Well, it didn't take DCI K very long to discover, in
14 fact, it was Tracey Clarke who bought the jacket, or so
15 he was told. The materials we have seen today include
16 the statement from Tracey Clarke's mother and stepfather
17 to the effect that there was a silver jacket, that she
18 was upset about the silver jacket being destroyed, and
19 that DCI K's team managed to find that wholesale
20 document which illustrated a silver jacket, which he was
21 able to show to the Tracey Clarke parents.
22 Again, if it was essential to eliminate or prove to
23 the best of their ability the clothing either did or did
24 not exist and imperative to establish it, one might have
25 thought that those further steps could have been taken
147
1 in 1997 rather than in 2000 and 2001.
2 If we go over the page to [09082], at paragraph 133:
3 "When interviewed about this particular aspect,
4 Robert Atkinson emphatically denied the allegation and
5 in consequence was asked to produce his telephone
6 account for that particular period. The subsequent
7 interview revealed contact on two occasions, namely
8 27th April and 2nd May 1997 between the Atkinson and
9 Hanvey homes. Again, Robert Atkinson denied knowledge
10 of the phone calls and suggested that his wife was in
11 a position to answer the queries."
12 Query the word "revealed" there. The use of the
13 word "revealed" there makes it look as if, until that
14 interview in September 1997, the police had no idea
15 whether the telephone records did say that. What that
16 interview actually did by way of provision of the
17 telephone accounts was confirm what they had already
18 known on 16th May.
19 If we go then down to paragraph 135:
20 "Immediately after this interview, Michael McKee was
21 interviewed and a witness statement recorded in which he
22 accepts having made the phone call on 27th April 1997
23 and gives his reasons for doing so. At a later stage,
24 a witness statement was recorded from Michael McKee's
25 wife, Andrea, which also supported his version of
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1 events. The parents of Allister Hanvey, [blank], and
2 Elizabeth were interviewed and although they declined to
3 make written statements, confirmed having received for
4 the reasons stated the two telephone calls in question.
5 The interview also revealed considerable animosity
6 towards Robert Atkinson by Trevor Hanvey to his duties
7 as a police officer. Having found no evidence other
8 than the telephone billing to substantiate the
9 allegation of Witness A, one can remain sceptical, but
10 there is absolutely no other evidence to substantiate
11 the allegation by Witness A. I therefore recommend 'no
12 prosecution'."
13 Well, it is true to say, as that final sentence or
14 so does say, that no other evidence was found to
15 substantiate the allegation of Tracey Clarke. That
16 rather begs the question: were they looking? The
17 elephant in the room, so far as this paragraph is
18 concerned, is that earlier sentence:
19 "At a later stage a witness statement was recorded
20 from Michael McKee's wife, Andrea, which also supported
21 his version of events."
22 One might have thought it might be prudent to put in
23 there "and she was lying, as we knew when we took it",
24 because the drift, as it were, of this paragraph is,
25 "Well, we did everything we could. All you have is
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1 Tracey Clarke. Yes, we would like to believe her, but
2 there is nothing we can do about it". To hide the fact
3 that a statement was taken which was believed to be
4 false as part of this alibi, if I can keep using that
5 word, is unfortunate to say the least.
6 So that's that crime file. What then happened, as
7 we now know, from ACC White, was the crime files were
8 checked, but that, not unnaturally, the limitation on
9 the checking process was contained in the crime files
10 themselves. All you could do was have trust in the
11 person compiling them and cross-check between, as it
12 were, the contents of the statements in the files and
13 the summary of those statements in the files.
14 So, for example, where this file says that the
15 telephone records revealed in September 1997 that there
16 was contact, it wasn't possible to check that against
17 the revelation contained in 16th May to the same effect,
18 because the 16th May information wasn't contained in the
19 file. So the selectivity of what goes into a crime file
20 there makes it impossible to check on it.
21 As I say, it is entirely possible to build a case in
22 hindsight based on what we now know and to inject quite
23 a lot of criticism into any analysis of this crime file,
24 and whether or not at the end it is right to do so is
25 obviously, of course, an important matter for you.
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1 The one other thing I would say about this at this
2 stage is, if Mr McBurney wished to protect Mr Atkinson
3 for whatever reason, he was in a cleft stick, because,
4 on the one hand, he had Tracey Clarke's witness
5 statement, which named, apparently, murderers, and this
6 was a high profile, a very important case, and obviously
7 he had to be seen to be doing something, and that, of
8 course, involved arresting and detaining those she made
9 allegations against, but if he was then to pursue the
10 case against them with great vigour, then
11 notwithstanding that he separated the allegation of the
12 tip-off from the murder allegation, he still has one
13 witness who deals with both, and if he is vigorously
14 prosecuting the alleged murderers, he at some point has
15 to face the fact that his prime witness is also making
16 a serious allegation against one of his police officers.
17 It is a point we will come back to, because it caused
18 grave difficulties for the DPP when they prosecuted
19 Hobson and put Mr Atkinson forward as a witness of
20 truth, despite all this going on at the same time, but
21 I will come back to that in due course.
22 The difficulty for Mr McBurney is clear there, and
23 a dilemma of that sort may go some way to explaining
24 some otherwise inexplicable decisions.
25 The first is, having got Tracey Clarke and
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1 Timothy Jameson to name names, it was obvious, I would
2 respectfully suggest, in Portadown, 1997, that any
3 police officer was going to realise he may face
4 difficulties getting those witnesses to court. You may
5 have thought that any respectable policeman in charge of
6 a murder like this in those days would therefore have
7 made efforts to bolster the case.
8 One of the things they could have done was to get
9 identity parades going or confrontations.
10 A confrontation was, in fact, held, as we know, between
11 one of the police officers, PC Neill, and Hobson. No
12 other witness seems to have been asked, as far as we can
13 tell, to attend identity or confrontation exercises.
14 Secondly, as I have said, although Miss Clarke is
15 the author of the tip-off allegation, nothing further
16 was done with her about that. She was not even asked
17 when she was in consultation with the DPP. Everybody
18 believed her. They believed her to the extent they were
19 content to keep people in custody principally on her
20 say-so, and yet one might have thought that the first
21 thing to do would be to go back and say, "Tell us more
22 about this tip-off".
23 Then there is the very curious business of the way
24 in which Marc Hobson was prosecuted, because, as I say,
25 there is the difficulty that, when Hobson was
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1 prosecuted, it was done on police evidence. PC Neill
2 was the principal witness against him, but it was known
3 that there was an issue about whether, in fact, PC Neill
4 could have seen what he said he saw, because there was
5 an argument that the police had not got out of the
6 Land Rover in time and his evidence was unreliable.
7 So there was a trawl for other police evidence.
8 There, of course, were four officers in the Land Rover.
9 The only other one who was called against Hobson was
10 Atkinson. He was obviously advanced as a witness of
11 truth at a stage when this tip-off allegation had still
12 not been resolved. There was a crime file in relation
13 to it, which we have just looked at, that had not yet
14 been determined. There was an application for
15 disclosure of materials by the defence team, which
16 resulted in the version of Tracey Clarke's statement
17 that we have already seen being served on the defence
18 team, but with the allegation that it was Atkinson that
19 had tipped off Hanvey taken out of it.
20 So the curious position was advanced to the judge
21 that Atkinson was advanced as a witness of truth when
22 there was an outstanding crime file about a tip-off
23 about what he saw on the night, and that the witness
24 statement which was disclosed had that removed. You
25 might have thought some cross-examination might have
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1 been directed to him on that point if the full statement
2 had been made available to the defence team. To be
3 fair --
4 THE CHAIRMAN: The issue of disclosure is not restricted to
5 admissible evidence. It can include evidence which,
6 though not admissible, may put someone on the right
7 line in a cross-examination.
8 MR UNDERWOOD: The key test. To be fair to the DPP, the
9 interview in which the tip-off allegation was very
10 loosely put to Atkinson was disclosed, but Tracey Clarke
11 was not disclosed in it as the source and neither was
12 any particular given in it. So the thrust of it was, as
13 it were, made the subject of an alert, but you didn't
14 have the fact that it was Tracey Clarke, as I say, upon
15 whose word those five people had been detained for six
16 months or so that had made the allegation.
17 So again, we have to try to get to the bottom of
18 that, and we will call the officer responsible for the
19 redaction policy at the DPP to discuss that, but, again,
20 it is difficult at this remove to know whether the
21 police had anything to do with it. It may have been
22 a DPP decision. There may have been a good reason for
23 it, but on the face of it, it is something which shows
24 an overlap between what might have been -- and I put it
25 at its highest -- a desire to protect Atkinson for some
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1 reason, and, as a consequence, an unwillingness to wound
2 in relation to the murder charges.
3 There is also -- I will leave it at that. As I say,
4 it is only fair that Mr McBurney, as best he can in his
5 own words, have his account given to you. As I say, it
6 is very easy to use hindsight to put together elements
7 of what could be a case, and, as I say, it may be
8 entirely fortuitous that these things happened and can
9 be strung together.
10 With that, what I am going to invite you to do is
11 break. We do have two witnesses that need to be fitted
12 in tomorrow, but, otherwise, I hope we can listen to the
13 majority of the tape
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
15 MR UNDERWOOD: May I invite you to sit at 10 o'clock?
16 THE CHAIRMAN: So be it. Which witnesses are these?
17 MR UNDERWOOD: We are going to hear William McCreesh and
18 ACC Hall.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
20 (4.12 pm)
21 (The hearing adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning)
22
23 --ooOoo--
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1 I N D E X
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MRS TRACEY HANVEY [nee CLARKE] ................... 2
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Questions from MR UNDERWOOD ............... 2
5 Questions from MR ADAIR ................... 58
Questions from MR McGRORY ................ 86
6 Questions from MS DINSMORE ................ 99
Questions from MR DALY .................... 108
7 Questions from DR McGLEENAN ............... 117
Further questions from MR UNDERWOOD ....... 128
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